d erect
fortifications below the town of Hugli; whilst he and they should
give to, and require from, the English, support in case of
hostilities from any quarter. Mir Jafar covenanted likewise to make
very large payments to the Company and others under the name of
restitution for the damages they had suffered since the first attack
on Calcutta; others also under the title of gratification for
services to be rendered in placing him on the _masnad_.[4] In the
former category were reckoned one karor, or ten millions, of rupees
to be paid to the Company; ten lakhs to the native inhabitants of
Calcutta, seven lakhs to the Armenians. Under the second head
payments were to be made to the army, the squadron, and the members
of the Special Committee of Calcutta, to the extent noted below.[5]

[Footnote 2: Subahdar was the correct official title of the governor,
or, as he is popularly styled, the Nawab, of Bengal.]

[Footnote 3: It must be recollected that in those days the Marathas
were regarded as serious and formidable enemies. It was against their
depredations that the ditch round Calcutta, known as the 'Maratha
Ditch,' had been dug.]

[Footnote 4: _Masnad_, a cushion, signifying the seat of supreme
authority.]

[Footnote 5: The Squadron was to receive 2,500,000 rupees; the Army,
the same; Mr. Drake, Governor of Calcutta (the same who had quitted
Calcutta and his companions to take shelter on board ship at the time
of Siraj-ud-daula's attack), 280,000; Colonel Clive, as second in the
Select Committee (appointed before the war to negotiate with Mir
Jafar), 280,000; Major Kilpatrick, Mr. Watts, and Mr. Becher, as
members of the said Committee, 240,000 each. I may here state in
anticipation that, in addition to these sums, the following private
donations were subsequently given, viz.: to Clive, 1,600,000 rupees;
to Watts, 300,000; to the six members of Council, 100,000 each; to
Walsh, Clive's secretary and paymaster to the Madras troops, 500,000;
to Scrafton, 200,000; to Lushington, 50,000; to Major A. Grant,
commanding the detachment of H.M.'s 39th regiment, 100,000.]

{109}The first of these contracts, now become binding, was to be
carried out on the morning of the 24th of June, at the interview
between the two principal parties, Clive and Mir Jafar. It has
occurred to me that the reader may possibly care to know something
more, little though it be, of the antecedents of this general, who,
to his own subsequent unhappin