Note 178 — FOOTNOTES: CHAPTER 11 CHAP. XII.
Reading edition
Lord Clive, in his address to the proprietors in 1764, answers all these objections in a very full and conclusive manner. In treating of the supposed claims of the Emperor and the want of power in the Nabob to grant a jaghire, he remarks, that the arguments used against him by the Directors are exactly those which the Dutch government had recently brought against them, in the affair of the destruction of their armament in 1760; and he refers the Court, in answer to their present plea, to the memorial they lately submitted to his Majesty; in which, after justly describing the Emperor of Delhi as possessing, beyond very narrow limits, only a nominal power, they observe; "The Nabob makes war or peace, without the privity of the Moghul; that there appears still some remains of the old constitution in the succession to the state of Nabob; yet, in fact, that the succession is never regulated by the Moghul's appointment: the Nabob in possession is desirous of fortifying his title by the Moghul's confirmation, which the court of Delhi, conscious of its inability to interpose, readily grants. The Nabob of Bengal is, therefore, de facto, whatever he may be de jure, a sovereign prince."