set the Nabob's ministers loose on the country, for the
protection of the victims devoted to their vengeance.

Mr. Benfield, to secure the permanency of his power, and the perfection
of his schemes, thought it necessary to render the Nabob an absolute
stranger to the state of his affairs. He assured his Highness that full
justice was not done to the strength of his sentiments and the keenness
of his attacks, in the translations that were made by the Company's
servants from the original Persian of his letters. He therefore proposed
to him that they should for the future be transmitted in English.--Of
the English language or writing his Highness or the Amir cannot read one
word, though the latter can converse in it with sufficient fluency. The
Persian language, as the language of the Mahomedan conquerors, and of
the court of Delhi, as an appendage or signal of authority, was at all
times particularly affected by the Nabob. It is the language of all acts
of state, and all public transactions, among the Mussulman chiefs of
Hindostan. The Nabob thought to have gained no inconsiderable point, in
procuring the correspondence from our predecessors to the Rajah of
Tanjore to be changed from the Mahratta language, which that Hindoo
prince understands, to the Persian, which he disclaims understanding. To
force the Rajah to the Nabob's language was gratifying the latter with a
new species of subserviency. He had formerly contended with considerable
anxiety, and, it was thought, no inconsiderable cost, for particular
forms of address to be used towards him in that language. But all of a
sudden, in favor of Mr. Benfield, he quits his former affections, his
habits, his knowledge, his curiosity, the increasing mistrust of age, to
throw himself upon the generous candor, the faithful interpretation, the
grateful return, and eloquent organ of Mr. Benfield!--_Mr. Benfield
relates and reads what he pleases to his Excellency the Amir-ul-Omrah;
his Excellency communicates with the Nabob, his father, in the language
the latter understands. Through two channels so pure, the truth must
arrive at the Nabob in perfect refinement; through this double trust,
his Highness receives whatever impression it may be convenient to make
on him: he abandons his signature to whatever paper they tell him
contains, in the English language, the sentiments with which they had
inspired him. He thus is surrounded on every side. He is totally at
their mercy, to believ