it is his master’s intention, in case the demand should not be relinquished by you, first to proceed to Lucknow, where he proposes having an interview with the Vizier and the Resident; if he should not be able to obtain his own terms for a future possession of his jaghire, he will set off for Calcutta in order to pray for justice from the Honorable the Governor-General. He observes, it is the custom of the Honorable Company, when they deprive a chief of his country, to grant him some allowance.  This he expects from Mr. Hastings’s bounty; but if he should be disappointed, he will certainly set off upon a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and renounce the cares of the world.—­He directs his vakeel to ascertain whether the English intend to deprive him of his country; for if they do, he is ready to surrender it, upon receiving an order from the Resident.”

XI.  That, after much negotiation, the Nabob Fyzoola Khan, “being fully sensible that an engagement to furnish military aid, however clearly the conditions might be stated, must be a source of perpetual misunderstanding and inconveniencies,” did at length agree with Major Palmer to give fifteen lacs, or 150,000_l._ and upwards, by four instalments, that he might be exempted from all future claims of military service; that the said Palmer represents it to be his belief, “that no person, not known to possess your [the said Hastings’s] confidence and support in the degree that I am supposed to do, would have obtained nearly so good terms”; but from what motive “terms so good” were granted, and how the confidence and support of the said Hastings did truly operate on the mind of Fyzoola Khan, doth appear to be better explained by another passage in the same letter, where the said Palmer congratulates himself on the satisfaction which he gave to Fyzoola Khan in the conduct of this negotiation, as he spent a month in order to effect “by argument and persuasion what he could have obtained in an hour by threats and compulsions.”

PART IX.

FULL VINDICATION OF FYZOOLA KHAN BY MAJOR PALMER AND MR. HASTINGS.

I. That, in the course of the said negotiation for establishing the rights of the Nabob Fyzoola Khan, Major Palmer aforesaid did communicate to the Resident, Bristow, and through the said Resident to the Council-General of Bengal, the full and direct denial of the Nabob Fyzoola Khan to all and every of the charges made or pretended to be made against him, as follows.

“Fyzoola Khan persists in denying the infringement on his part of any one article in the treaty, or the neglect of any obligation which it imposed upon him.

“He does not admit of the improvements reported to be made in his jaghire, and even asserts that the collections this year will fall short of the original jumma [or estimate] by reason of the long drought.