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In former days, a young man arriving at Calcutta as a writer, had no difficulty in raising money by borrowing from some wealthy circar; and many of those very young men are still hampered with debts they can never pay: though high in office, and enjoying large salaries, they are tied to the country by their creditors, to whom they are obliged to give a large portion of their earnings.
Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his salutation?
It is astonishing how quickly these circars find out when an old customer or "Master" returns to Calcutta. I have been visited by mine within an hour after reaching town. In one instance, I had come up the river in an express boat, and had arrived as soon as the mail; but, presently, in came Master's circar, bowing low, and "hoping Master has had a pleasant voyage, and made too much money."
It bullies its bhearer; it bangs distractingly on the tom-tom; it surfeits itself to an apoplectic point with pish-pash; it burns its mouth with hot curry, and bawls; it indulges in horrid Hindostanee songs, whereof the burden will not bear translation; it insults whatever is most sacred to the caste attachments of its attendants; the Moab of ayahs is its wash-pot, over an Edom of bhearers will it cast out its shoe; it slaps the mouth of a gray-haired khansaman with its slipper, and dips its poodle's paws in a Mohammedan kitmudgar's rice; it calls a learned Pundit an asal ulu, an egregious owl; it says to a high-caste circar, "Shut up, you pig!" and to an illustrious moonshee, "Hi, toom junglee-wallah!"
"I further move the board, that the dewan, Gunga Govind Sing, together with his naib, Prawn Kishin Sing, his son, and all his dependants, be removed from their offices, and that the Roy Royan, Rajah Rajebullub, whose duty only Gunga Govind Sing virtually is to perform, be reinstated in the exercise of the duties of his department; and that Gunga Govind Sing be ordered to deliver up all official papers of the circar to the Committee of Revenue and the Roy Royan, and that they be ordered accordingly to take charge of them, and finally settle all accounts."
Translation of an Arzee, in the Persian Language, from Uzzim-ul-Doen Cawn, the Killidar of Vellore, to the Nabob, dated 1st September, 1783. Inclosed in the Nabob's Letter to the Court of Directors, September, 1783. The outrages and violences now committed are of that astonishing nature as were never known or heard of during the administration of the Circar.
Salabatzing, the suba of De-can, perceiving the success of the English here as well as at Madras, being sick of his French alliance, and in dread of his brother Nizam Allée, who had set up a separate interest, and taken the field against him, made advances to the company, with which he forthwith concluded a treaty to the following effect: "The whole of the circar of Masulipatam shall be given to the English company.
He says, "The Begum's ministers, before my arrival, with the advice of their counsellors, caused the Nabob to sign a receipt, in consequence of which they received at two different times near fifty thousand rupees, in the name of the officers of the Adawlut, Foujdarry, &c., from the Company's circar; and having drawn up an account-current in the manner they wished, they got the Nabob to sign it, and then sent it to me."
By the 13th article contained in the instructions given by the Nabob to Mr. Dupré, as the basis for negotiating the treaty made with the Rajah in 1771, the Nabob required that the Arnee district should be delivered up to the circar, because the braminees had broken the conditions which they were to have observed.
The circar, too, is a useful character, but, generally, a sad scamp: he will conduct the stranger all over this vast city, shew him where any thing is to be had, pay his bills for him, and save him a world of trouble; which he makes answer his purpose by deducting one pice, or about two per cent, from every rupee you may order him to pay for you, and by charging a moderate per-centage on what he may be commissioned to procure for "Master."
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