e paid by him to each member of Council,[3] these
official Englishmen covenanted to dethrone their ally of Plassey, Mir
Jafar, and to seat on the _masnad_ his son-in-law, Mir Kasim. Three
days after the signature of the treaty Mir {153}Kasim set out to make
his preparations for the coming event, and two days afterwards Mr.
Vansittart started for Murshidabad to break the news to Mir Jafar.
His very first official act had been a violation of the principle
prescribed to him by Clive as the one the non-indulgence in which
would secure the English from all danger.

[Footnote 3: He included even Major Calliaud, but without the
consent, and after the departure from India, of that officer.]

The events which followed must be stated very briefly. Vansittart
obtained from Mir Jafar his resignation. The one condition stipulated
by the old man was that thenceforth he should reside, under the
protection of the English, at Calcutta, or in its immediate vicinity.
For that city he started the following morning (September 19). Mir
Kasim proceeded to Patna to complete the arrangements which had
followed the repulse of the invasion of Bihar by the troops of Shah
Alim, and was there formally installed by Shah Alim himself as
Subahdar of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.

Mir Kasim possessed all the capacities of a ruler. He knew thoroughly
the evils under which the three provinces were groaning, and he
proceeded with all the energy of a nature which never tired to reform
them. He moved his capital to Mungir, a town with a fortress, on the
right bank of the Ganges, commanding Northern and Eastern Bihar, and
nearly midway between Calcutta and Benares. He then proceeded to
reform his infantry on the English system, enlisting in his service
two well-known soldiers of mixed or Armenian descent, Samru and
{154}Markar, to command brigades of their own, and to aid in the
training of the other soldiers. So far he achieved success. But when
he proceeded to alleviate the misery of his people, he found that the
fatal gift of the salt monopoly enabled the English to thwart all his
efforts. For not only did the English use the authority they
possessed to the great impoverishment of the soil, but they gave to
their friends and dependents licences exempting from the payment of
duty in such profusion, that the people of Bengal and Bihar suffered
to an extent such as, in the present day, can with difficulty be
credited. Never, on the one side, was there so insa