none but the British masters of the country.

A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid was naturally an
object of ambition to the ablest and most powerful natives. Clive had
found it difficult to decide between conflicting pretensions. Two
candidates stood out prominently from the crowd, each of them the
representative of a race and of a religion.

One of these was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of Persian extraction,
able, active, religious after the fashion of his people, and highly
esteemed by them. In England he might perhaps have been regarded as a
corrupt and greedy politician. But, tried by the lower standard of
Indian morality, he might be considered as a man of integrity and honor.

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name has, by a terrible and
melancholy event, been inseparably associated with that of Warren
Hastings, the Maharajah Nuncomar. This man had played an important part
in all the revolutions which, since the time of Surajah Dowlah, had
taken place in Bengal. To the consideration which in that country
belongs to high and pure caste, he added the weight which is derived
from wealth, talents, and experience. Of his moral character it is
difficult to give a notion to those who are acquainted with human
nature only as it appears in our island. What the Italian is to the
Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what the Bengalee is to
other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to other Bengalese. The physical
organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a
constant vapor bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his
movements languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by men of
bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are
qualities to which his constitution and his situation are equally
unfavorable. His mind bears a singular analogy to his body. It is weak
even to helplessness, for purposes of manly resistance; but its
suppleness and its tact move the children of sterner climates to
admiration not unmingled with contempt. All those arts which are the
natural defence of the weak are more familiar to this subtle race than
to the Ionian of the time of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the dark ages.
What the horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what
the sting is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song,
is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, smooth excuses,
elaborate tissues of circu