Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/43

 INTRODUCTORY RETROSPECT 19 abuses of political government. Grasping and mercenary spirit made the so-called guardians of the people inaccessible to the plainest dictates of reason, justice, and policy and infused in them a total contempt for public welfare. The evils of an alien rule were aggravated by a deep ignorance of the manners and customs of the people and by a singular want of identifica- Effects of an alien ns tion with their interests,—two articles which, as Ghulam Husain rightly ecom- ments,! are the principles of all union and attachment, of all regulation and settlement between the governors and the governed. During these years, the Mohammedan government itself was coming to an inglorious end. The situation of Mir Ja‘far was deplorable from the Dissolution of the first. Old, indolent, voluptuous, en- Mohammedan govern- 5 ‘ : ent; its effect. dowed with many ineurable vices, he made a very poor figure-head ; and with an exhausted treasury, on the one hand, and vast engagements to discharge, on the other, he was driven to severest exactions. While his cruelties made him detestable, negligence, disorder, and weakness of his government exposed him to contempt. Mir Kasim was a more capable monarch, and Vansittart? pays a well-deserved tribute to his administration. Careful as he was of giving offence to the English, he could not help coming into conflict with them; for, as Vansittart says, “scarce a day passed but occasion was taken from the most trifling pretences to trample on his Government, to seize his officers und to insult them with threats and invectives.” The executive power and control over criminal justice were still left in the hands of the Nawab, whose sovereign ® Vansittart, op. cit. iii, 381.
 * Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 161.