you to know, and consequently for me to
communicate, I am under a necessity of laying before you. He told me he
had received information from Lucknow, that, by the advice of Hyder Beg
Khan, the Vizier had determined to bring his grandmother, the widow of
Sufdar Jung, from Fyzabad to Lucknow, with a view of getting a further
sum of money from her, by seizing on her eunuchs, digging up the
apartments of her house at Fyzabad, and putting her own person under
restraint. This, he said, he knew was not an act of our government, but
the mere advice of Hyder Beg Khan, to which the Vizier had been induced
to attend. He added, that the old Begum had resolved rather to put
herself to death than submit to the disgrace intended to be put upon
her; that, if such a circumstance should happen, there is _not a man in
Hindostan who will attribute the act to the Vizier [Nabob of Oude], but
every one will fix the odium on the English, who might easily, by the
influence they so largely exercise in their own concerns there_, have
prevented such unnatural conduct in the Vizier. He therefore called upon
me, as the English representative in this quarter, to inform you of
this, that you may prevent a step which will destroy all confidence in
the English nation throughout Hindostan, and excite the bitterest
resentment in all those who by blood are connected with the house of
Sufdar Jung. He concluded by saying, that, 'if the Vizier so little
regarded his family and personal honor, or his natural duty, as to wish
to disgrace his father's mother for a sum of money, let him plunder her
of all she has, but let him send her safe up to Delhi or Agra, and, poor
as I am, I will furnish subsistence for her, which she shall possess
with safety and honor, though it cannot be adequate to her rank.'

"This, Sir, is a most exact detail of the conversation (as far as
related to that affair) on the part of Mirza Shaffee Khan. On my part I
could only say, that I imagined the affair was misrepresented, and that
I should write as he requested. Let me therefore request that you will
enable me to answer in a more effectual manner any further questions on
this subject.

LXXXII. "As Mirza Shaffee's grandfather was brother to Sufdar Jung,
there can be no doubt of what his declaration means; and if this measure
of dismissing the old Begum should be persisted in, I should not, from
the state of affairs, and the character of the Amir ul Omrah, be
surprised at some immedia