By this departure, Mir-cassem-qhan had remained the sole possessor of the Mesned of command and sovereignty; and nevertheless he sought to raise his importance by several sound­ing titles and surnames, which he was at the pains of pro­curing from the Imperial Court; these were those of Nas­syr-el-mulk, Imtiaz-ed-döula-mir-mahmed-cạssem-qhan-nusret-djung.* A son being born to him a little before this sudden elevation, he looked upon his birth as presaging certain success to his enterprise; and as he understood a little astrology, and believed in its maxims and predictions, he procured the child’s horoscope to be accurately drawn by several able astrologers; and on their predictions he expressed his hope, that he would one day rise to the highest dignities. But he did not live; and he died two or three years after his father had appointed him Governor-General of the province of Azim-abad, and had pro­cured for him from the Emperor, the titles of Mir-shems-eddin-aaly-qhan-bahadyr-nassyr-djung,* with the grade of seven thousand horse. A seraglio had been provided for him, together with a number of servants, and officers, and chairmen, and horses, and elephants, all proportioned to his size; so that the child with its diminutive seraglio, and household, and retinue, became for a time a spectacle to the whole city of M8rsh8d-abad. The new Prince, after having provided for his son, remembered his rela­tions. He had a maternal uncle, by name Mir-aab8-t8rab, a poor wretch, whom in the first days of his power, he raised to the title of Muéz-ed-döula,* (T8rab-aaly-qhan-bahadyr,) bestow­ing upon him a standard, a kettle-drum, a fringed paleky, and a brigade of horse and foot. The son of this uncle was honoured with the title of Aab8-aaly-qhan-bahadyr, and with a brigade; and he took care to distinguish him, but without giving him any influence or authority; and the truth is, that he had not merit enough for such a distinction. The uncle himself was not a man of merit; nor had he any fitness for employs and commands; but he had the merit of remembering very well both those he had loved, and those that had shewn any friendship to him; nor did he fail, as much as it depended on him, to promote their welfare, and to watch every favourable moment of speaking in their behalf to the new Prince, who soon after his elevation betrayed some ferocity in his temper. However, his principal care on the first days of the revolution, was only to establish and to confirm some stipulations and promises that had been agreed to with the Court of Calcutta, and with the English nation. These stipula­tions had been written and witnessed by both sides; and they were now confirmed and agreed to anew; in consequence of which, Mir-cassem-qhan being invested with the power of binding and losing, closely applied himself to the business of re-establishing the finances, and settling the government of the country. With this view he took to task all the heads of the several offices, whether those of old standing, or those that had been brought in by Mir-djaafer-qhan, or his son, Miren; he obliged them to render a circumstantial account of their adminis­tration, and thereby discovered an infinity of infidelities and embezzlements; and in this particular branch of administration, he had the art to get himself assisted by several ancient officers, whom he took care to soothe into compliance, by taking them into favour. These were of great service to him in discovering and convicting the others. By these means he came to have an exact account of the effecive men in the army, and of the quan­tity of money, jewels, and furniture left in the palace or in the treasury. As a further security, he appointed some of his friends, on whose abilities he confided, to act as Comptrollers, and Super­visors in the several offices. Aaly-hibrahim-qhan, who was his trustiest friend, and who, to all his innate delicacy in matters of honour and fidelity, joins the incomparable talent of unravelling the most hidden mysteries of administration, and of discovering intuitively the decisive knot of the most intricate accounts, was proposed chiefly to the military examination, and to the business of ascertaining the real arrears due to the troops. But besides that appointment, he occasionally unravelled with an admirable dexterity, the hidden springs and artifices of the most complicated statements. But still an associate was given him in that busi­ness; and it was Sitaram, a man of a bad character indeed, and who was universally known for a mischievous wicked Min­ister, but who was a complete master of all the intricacies of revenue accounts; and as he had been often at variance with other Accomptants, he was thought the fitter for examining and bringing to light the embezzlements of the other officers of the revenue, and of the several penmen. Mir-m8nshy, the Navvab’s Secretary, a man in whom he reposed a great confidence, and who had been decorated with the title of Hafyz-esrar-qhan,* was now proposed to audit certain accounts, and to unravel cer­tain expenditures that were of his province.

But a man who now appeared for the first time upon the horizon, and soon rose to engross the Navvab’s unbounded con­fidence, was an Armenian called Qhadja-gurghin, brother to Qhadja-bedross.* He was put at the head of the artillery, with orders to new-model it after the European fashion, and likewise to discipline the musqueteers in his service after the English manner; troops, which to this day have retained the name of Talingas, in imitation of their patterns and models. To raise his character, he was henceforward called Gurghin-qhan, and distinguished by many favours; and he soon became a prin­cipal man in the Navvab’s service. There was no man equal to him in that Prince’s employment; none had so much credit upon his mind; and to this day, no General ever had the art of govern­ing his master in so complete a manner. He, like the devil, was endlessly running after Mir-cassem-qhan; and having once laid hold of him, he mastered him, and kept him under at pleasure. Another of his favourites, who yielded but little to Gurghin-qhan, was Sheh-mesned-aaly the Lucnovian, a man of the scum of the people, totally void of brains, but who now was raised to the highest rank in the army; his favour extended even to his sons, as well as to his two nephews, who after his death, inherited part of his offices, and were each of them Paymasters to four or five thousand horse. Ferhad-aaly had some thousand horse to his share, and Bereket-aaly in proportion; his son, Mahmed-aaly, had the command and payment of five thousand horse, who were disciplined after the English manner, and commanded by Hevali­dars, and Djemaatdars, and S8bahdars, and Comidans, (Com­mandants). To every troop of ten amongst these five thousand troopers, there was added a stout man, with a drawn sabre, whose business was, in a day of battle, not to fight himself, but to kill upon the spot, any one that should turn his back. On another side, Mirza-shemseddin, who had been even from his youth attached to Mir-cassem-qhan, and was a man quick at repartees and of a pleasing conversation, was sent to Azim-abad, with the commission of gaining the hearts of Miren’s army quartered there, and of conciliating to his government the minds of the principal persons of that city. This commission having been ably executed, soon rendered him one of the principal favourites of the Navvab’s. He was honoured with some lucrative offices, for instance, that of the wardrobe, with the agency at the Emperor’s Court, and the management of the djaghirs, or apanages affected to some persons, now in the Imperial camp, as well as of some other lands and districts. It is remarkable, that some time before Mir-cassem-qhan’s elevation, I received a very obliging and very polite letter from him, where he fixed upon me a handsome salary, and requested my interest with the English of the factory at Azim-abad, and with some other persons of con­sequence amongst them, that he might by their means obtain the government of that province. He was unaware at that time, that his good fortune destined him to the sovereignty of the very country of which he wished to have only the government; and moreover would add to it the throne of Bengal.

He was hardly established on the Mesned, when he instituted a scrutiny in the department of finances, where he was amazed and thunderstruck at the emptiness of the treasury, and at the immense balances which he had to pay to his own troops, as well as to those of Mir-djaafer-qhan’s, for whose arrears he had pledged himself; and all that, over and above the large sums that were due to the English army and to the English rulers. He therefore resolved to keep a watchful eye over such Districts of Bengal as had come in his possession; and at the same time he made over to the English the whole province of Bardevan, in assignment of what was due to them for the pay of their army; he also put into their hands his own jewels, as a pledge for the sums promised to that nation. From thence he turned his thought towards the musters of the army, where, after repeated reviews and a minute investigation, made under the eyes of Aaly-hibra­him-qhan, it appeared that enormous infidelities had been com­mitted in the Paymaster’s office; and that there was no other way of paying off the sums due to the army, than by liquidating one part of them by the monies accruing from the revenues, and one part, by giving assignations upon several provinces; after which there would remain one-third part more, which might be payable at some future period. The troops, who under the preceding administration had been driven to despair by the inability of the treasury, satisfied with the steps taken to discharge their arrears, and to pay them regularly for the future, acquiesced in every thing; and it is on this subject probably, that Mir-cassem-qhan, in consequence of some previous agreement, received of the Djagat-seats a sum of money; a disagreeable operation to which he was driven by the necessity of his afiairs. These arrangements being over, he turned his views towards his own income, and he curtailed his expenses so as to bring his expenditure on a par with his revenue, retrenching as useless and burdensome a variety of expenses usual and customary in India, and which men in power believe to be necessary to their pleasures; for instance, the ram-office, the nightingale-office, the antelope-office, and some others, all belonging to the menagery department. Of all that multitude of animals, he kept only a few of each species, and made the rest over to the Zemindars of the provinces, on their paying a certain price, which his treasury received from their agents, At the same time, Chunny-laal, and M8ny-laal, those men that had fattened so long on the vitals of the people, were seized, and served according to their deserts; and vast sums of money accrued to the treasury from the confiscation of their effects.