Note 08 — Chapter IV · SHOWING HOW MISS FREYNE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH HER SURROUNDINGS.

“I ask your pardon for my negligence, madam. Mohabut Jing, whom some call Ally Verdy Cawn, is the Nabob of Bengall, and dwells at Muxadavad,[08] a great city lying close to our factory of Cossimbuzar.[09] The term Nabob signifies a deputy, or what the Portuguese call a viceroy, and Mohabut Jing affects to consider the Mogul Emperor of Delly[10] his master, though in reality he rules for himself alone. Having attained his present situation by violence, he has held it with a strong hand, though unable to resist the encroachments of the Morattoes,[11] a fierce pagan nation from the Decan. These came so far as to invade Bengall some thirteen years ago, at which time the Indian inhabitants of the Company’s territory sought leave, in a panic, to dig a great ditch all round the place at their own charges. Three miles of this fortification was made, and then stopped as unnecessary, for the Nabob came to an accommodation with the Morattoes, giving up to them the province of Orixa,[12] and consenting to pay them a tribute, which they call chout, for sparing Bengall. This he did, fearing lest the European factories would take the side of the Morattoes, and so drive him out; for he goes very much in fear of us, and desired to have leisure to humble our pride. And this he has done by forbidding any hostilities in Bengall when there was war at home, and also in the Carnatic, between Britain and France—a prohibition which was, as you may guess, the most irksome thing in the world to us. ’Tis his aim to reduce our trade to the level of that of the Armenians, which is carried on merely on sufferance, whereas we are here in virtue of the phirmaunds and husbulhookums[13] granted to us by several of the emperors.”