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He was, they said, a great captain whom the Seths had brought from very far at a great expense, to deliver Bengal from the tyranny of Siraj-ud-daula, as Salabat Jang had engaged M. Bussy to keep the Marathas in order. Many of the principal persons even asked me what country he came from. Others, mixing up all Europeans together, thought that I was a deputy from Clive.

The room was large, and round the four sides of it ran a very broad, very low, and very filthy divan, intended for the rest and repose of portly bunnias, seths, brokers, shopkeepers and others of the commercial fraternity, what time they assembled to chew pan and exchange lies and truths anent money and the markets.

The Seths and the English had long found the chief difficulty in their way to be the choice of a man of sufficient distinction to replace Siraj-ud-daula on the throne. At this moment the Nawab himself gave them as a leader Mir Jafar Ali Khan, who had married the sister of Aliverdi Khan, and was therefore a relative of his.

If the fact had been false, the Seths would certainly have denied it, and would have reproached me for talking in such a way.

Why had He created the Seths to weary for love of the Celias and the Cyclonas to eat out their hearts for love of the Seths? Some of these questions she had been wont to put to Seth, who had answered them as best he could in his patient way. There was a hidden meaning in it all, he had said, meaningless as it often seemed. Some meaning that would show itself in God's good time.

This incident warned the Seths to be more cautious, but still the plot against the Nawab was well known in the country. Renault, who had been at this time a prisoner in Calcutta, says: "Never was a conspiracy conducted as publicly and with such indiscretion as this was, both by the Moors and the English.

The Seths were persuaded that the Nawab who hated the English must also dislike the persons whom the English employed. Profiting by the hatred which the Nawab had drawn on himself by his violence, and distributing money judiciously, they had long since gained over those who were nearest to the Nawab, whose imprudence always enabled them to know what he had in his heart.

They detest the Muhammadan Government, and if it had not been for the Seths, the famous bankers, with whom they have close connections, it is probable that after the Revolution in which Siraj-ud-daula was the victim, they would all have risen together to establish a Hindu Government, from which the English would not have obtained all the advantages they did from the Muhammadan."

The English had also on their side all the chief officers in the Nawab's army Jafar All Khan, Khodadad Khan Latty, and a number of others who were attached to them by their presents or the influence of the Seths, all the ministers of the old Court whom Siraj-ud-daula had disgraced, nearly all the secretaries, the writers of the Durbar, and even the eunuchs of the harem.

One day he would strut in some vainglorious semblance of dignity; the next he would engage in drunken revels with the meanest and most dissolute of his subjects. He insulted his commander-in-chief, Mir Jafar: he offended the Seths, wealthy bankers of Murshidabad who had helped him to his throne: he played fast and loose with everyone with whom he had dealings.