the three provinces, for the administration of
justice, and for the enforcing of obedience to the law; that there
should be a Diwan, or chief minister, empowered to collect the yearly
revenue of the provinces, responsible for all disbursements, and for
the payment of the surplus into the Imperial treasury. This system
had prevailed in the time of the Emperor Aurangzeb. But there was
this important difference. In Clive's scheme, whilst Nujm-ud-daula
would be Nawab-Nazim, the East India Company would occupy, from that
time forth and for ever, the position of Diwan; and the Imperial
treasury would be the treasury of the Company. The scheme was agreed
to by the young Nawab and his surroundings. But in working it, one
part was found to place a power that would be abused in the hands of
the Nawab-Nazim. Accordingly, a few months later, that prince was
relieved of the responsibility for the maintenance of the public
peace, for the administration of justice, and for the enforcing of
obedience to the law. In a word, the Company became the rulers of the
three provinces, the Nawab-Nazim a cypher. Nay, more, the sum of
money which the Nawab-Nazim was to have at his disposal was limited
to fifty-three lakhs of rupees; from this he was to defray the entire
expenses of his court. Was it for such a result, might the shade of
Mir Jafar inquire, that the nobles of the three provinces combined to
betray Siraj-ud-daula?

{173}After having thus settled the affairs of the Company at
Murshidabad, Clive proceeded by way of Patna to Benares, to meet
there his friend General Carnac and the suppliant Nawab-Wazir of
Oudh. This interview was, in the eyes of Clive, likely to be fraught
with the most important consequences, for he was bent on the securing
of a frontier for the English possessions such as would offer the
best points of defence against invasion; for, in his view, it was to
be permanent.

It ought not to be attributed as a great political fault to Clive
that his mind had not realized the fact that to maintain it is often
necessary to advance. In a word, it would be most unfair to judge the
action of 1765-6 by the lights of the experience of the century which
followed. Up to the year 1757 the unwarlike inhabitants of Bengal had
been the prey of the Mughal or the Maratha. But in 1765, so far as
could be judged, neither was to be feared. The Maratha power had
suffered in 1761, on the field of Panipat, near Delhi, one of the
most crushi