and were
likely to see their trade crippled by Cossim Ali Khan, fell into a most
violent fury at this treaty; and as the treaty was made without the
concurrence of the rest of the Council, the Company's servants grew
divided: one part were the advocates of the treaty, the other of the
trade. The latter were universally of opinion that the treaty was bought
for a great sum of money. The evidence we have on our records of the
sums of money that are stated to have been paid on this occasion has
never been investigated to the bottom; but we have it on record, that a
great sum (70,000_l._) was paid to persons concerned in that
negotiation. The rest were exceedingly wroth to see themselves not
profiting by the negotiation, and losing the trade, or likely to be
excluded from it; and they were the more so, because, as we have it upon
our journals, during all that time the trade of the negotiators was not
proscribed, but a purwannah was issued by Cossim Ali Khan, that the
trade of his friends Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Hastings should not be
subject to the general regulations. This filled the whole settlement
with ill blood; but in the regulation itself (I put the motive and the
secret history out of the case) undoubtedly Mr. Hastings and Mr.
Vansittart were on the right side. They had shown to a demonstration the
mischief of this trade. However, as the other party were strong, and did
not readily let go their hold of this great advantage, first,
dissensions, murmurs, various kinds of complaints, and ill blood arose.
Cossim Ali was driven to the wall; and having at the same time made what
he thought good preparations, a war broke out at last. And how did it
break out? This Cossim Ali Khan signalized his first acts of hostility
by an atrocity committed against the faith of treaties, against the
rules of war, against every principle of honor. This intended murderer
of his father-in-law, whom Mr. Hastings had assisted to raise to the
throne of Bengal, well knowing his character and his disposition, and
well knowing what such a man was capable of doing,--this man massacred
the English wherever he met them. There were two hundred, or
thereabouts, of the Company's servants, or their dependants, slaughtered
at Patna with every circumstance of the most abominable cruelty. Their
limbs were cut to pieces. The tyrant whom Mr. Hastings set up cut and
hacked the limbs of British subjects in the most cruel and perfidious
manner, threw them into we