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Rh own conditions upon the new Wazír, Asaf-ud-daulá. Their agent Bristow, with whom they held the same kind of correspondence which they had so lately condemned in the case of Hastings, threw himself with pliant eagerness into all their plans. In vain did Hastings and Barwell plead for the fair observance of former treaties and for the personal rights of the young Wazír, as heir to his father's throne and property. In vain did Asaf-ud-daulá protest against demands which saddled his kingdom with new burdens, and robbed him of the very means of carrying on his government. Before the end of May, 1775, he had signed a new treaty, which transferred to the Company the revenue-rights over Chait Singh's Benares domains, and raised by 50,000 rupees a month the subsidy his father had paid for the British garrison in Oudh. At the same time he bound himself to pay off, with all speed, the balance of his father's debt to the Company.

Besides these hard conditions, with his own army mutinous for long arrears of pay, the helpless youth was forced to surrender to his father's widow nearly the whole of the two millions sterling which Shujá had stored up in his treasury for use in times of public need. Neither in law nor in fact had the Queen-mother any right to a share of this large treasure. She already possessed a jaghír, or landed estate, which yielded her fifty thousand pounds a year. But she claimed the two millions also under a win which was never produced; and her son was