two or three crores of rupees of the treasure of Mír Jafar Khán. I never seized a bíghá of the land belonging to Calcutta; nor have I imprisoned your gomashtas. Have I not discharged the debts contracted by the Khán aforenamed? Did I procure from you, gentlemen, the payment of the arrears of his army, or put you to the expense of maintaining the Company's forces? ... I gave you a country which produced near a crore of rupees. Was it for this only, that after two or three months you should place another on the masnad of the Nizámat?'
At this moment Hastings was undergoing a sharp cross-fire from both parties to the pending controversy. In the bitterness of his spirit the Nawáb traced all his troubles and misfortunes to Mr. Hastings, who had once counselled him to 'engage the English in his interests,' and to accept the fatal gift of government from their hands. In the same month of June the imputed 'author of all these evils' had been roundly reviled in the council-room by an angry colleague for defending Mír Kásim with the unscrupulous zeal of a hired solicitor. The strong language was followed up by a blow, for which Batson had to offer a full apology in terms dictated by the Council itself.
Some weeks earlier Hastings had vainly protested against the large powers which his colleagues resolved to bestow at such a juncture on the rash, wrongheaded chief of the Patná factory. The result was soon to justify his forecast. The arrest of an English merchant and the seizure of a boat-load of arms by the Nawáb's
