the most
considerable at present is commonly known by the title of the Nabob of
Arcot.

This prince owed the establishment of his government, against the claims
of his elder brother, as well as those of other competitors, to the arms
and influence of the British East India Company. Being thus established
in a considerable part of the dominions he now possesses, he began,
about the year 1765, to form, at the instigation (as he asserts) of the
servants of the East India Company, a variety of designs for the further
extension of his territories. Some years after, he carried his views to
certain objects of interior arrangement, of a very pernicious nature.
None of these designs could be compassed without the aid of the
Company's arms; nor could those arms be employed consistently with an
obedience to the Company's orders. He was therefore advised to form a
more secret, but an equally powerful, interest among the servants of
that Company, and among others both at home and abroad. By engaging them
in his interests, the use of the Company's power might be obtained
without their ostensible authority; the power might even be employed in
defiance of the authority, if the case should require, as in truth it
often did require, a proceeding of that degree of boldness.

The Company had put him into possession of several great cities and
magnificent castles. The good order of his affairs, his sense of
personal dignity, his ideas of Oriental splendor, and the habits of an
Asiatic life, (to which, being a native of India, and a Mahometan, he
had from his infancy been inured,) would naturally have led him to fix
the seat of his government within his own dominions. Instead of this, he
totally sequestered himself from his country, and, abandoning all
appearance of state, he took up his residence in an ordinary house,
which he purchased in the suburbs of the Company's factory at Madras. In
that place he has lived, without removing one day from thence, for
several years past. He has there continued a constant cabal with the
Company's servants, from the highest to the lowest,--creating, out of
the ruins of the country, brilliant fortunes for those who will, and
entirely destroying those who will not, be subservient to his purposes.

An opinion prevailed, strongly confirmed by several passages in his own
letters, as well as by a combination of circumstances forming a body of
evidence which cannot be resisted, that very great sums have been b