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HISTORY OK INDIA.
[Hook III,
Meur JalTiur ))refcrre<l.
dt'Utis.
A.u 1767. without delay, and that Colonel Clive would immediately Vjreak up hi« {;amp, and soothe the nabob with every apfjearance of pacific intentioas until hostilities .should commence.
Meer Jaffier, l)eing a far more important personage than Yar Luttief Khan, had no difficulty in obtaining the preference. He was brother-in-law of the late nabob, Ali Verdy Khan, and held both under him and Surajah Dowlah the office of paymaster-general, which necessarily gave him great influence with the army, and has caused him to be sometimes described as its commander-in- chief Ali Verdy made a trial of his military talents, by appointing him Uj the command of a large detachment, intended to expel the united Mahrattas and Afghans from Orissa. His incapacity was, however, soon proved ; and after his indolence and pusillanimity had enabled the enemy to gain decided advantages. Ali Verdy was obliged to supersede him. Meer Jaffier .showed his resentment, and endeavoured to gratify his revenge by leaguing secretly with a treasonable laction, and though, more from fear of the danger than a sense of returning duty, he abandoned the league, he had gone too far to be forgiven, and wa."- deprived of all his employments. He seems to have been reinstated at a late-
B:s.intece period, as he figures among the principal persons whom Surajah Dowlah, on his accession, dismissed from office, in order to make way for his own favourites. Meer Jaffier expressed his resentment, as before, by placing liimself at the head of a treasonable intrigue, and encom'aging Shokut Jung, governor of Pumeah, to assert his claim to the musnud. The failure of that attempt had induced him to shake himself free of all connection with it ; and he had insinuated himself into the good graces of the nabob, for he was present in his capacity of buckshee or paymaster-general at the capture of Calcutta, and is the only officer of dis- tinction who stands chargeable with a direct participation in the atrocities of the Black Hole. The English woman, wdio sm'vived the horrors of that night, was carried off in triumph to Meer Jaffier's harem.
Such was the man who, again plotting for the overthrow of his master, was selected to usurp his place. His character must have been too well known to invite confidence in his professions, and care was therefore taken to insert all the obligations exacted from him, in formal written docimients, to which, not with much propriety, the names of a public and a private treaty have been given. The public treaty, wi'itten in Persian, commenced with the following sentence, in Meer Jaffier's oyii hand: — "I swear by God, and the Prophet of God, to abide by the terms of this treaty whilst I have life." It is entitled, " Treaty made with the Admiral and Colonel Clive" (Sabut Jung Behauder), and consists of twelve articles, and a thirteenth, called an additional article. The first article simply agrees to comply with " whatever articles were agreed upon in the time of peace" with the Nabob Surajah Dowlah. The second article is, "The ene- mies of the English are my enemies, whether they be Indians or Europeans." Ai-ticle III. confiscates to the English all the effects and factories of the French
His agree- ment with the Com- pany.
