hey negligent of rhetoric and poetry. Many persons
now living have heard aged men talk with regret of the golden days when
the Afghan princes ruled in the vale of Rohilcund.

Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich district to his own
principality. Right, or show of right, he had absolutely none. His claim
was in no respect better founded than that of Catherine to Poland, or
that of the Bonaparte family to Spain. The Rohillas held their country
by exactly the same title by which he held his, and had governed their
country far better than his had ever been governed. Nor were they a
people whom it was perfectly safe to attack. Their land was indeed an
open plain, destitute of natural defences; but their veins were full of
the high blood of Afghanistan. As soldiers, they had not the steadiness
which is seldom found except in company with strict discipline; but
their impetuous valor had been proved on many fields of battle. It was
said that their chiefs, when united by common peril, could bring eighty
thousand men into the field. Sujah Dowlah had himself seen them fight,
and wisely shrank from a conflict with them. There was in India one
army, and only one, against which even those proud Caucasian tribes
could not stand. It had been abundantly proved that neither tenfold
odds, nor the martial ardor of the boldest Asiatic nations, could avail
aught against English science and resolution. Was it possible to induce
the Governor of Bengal to let out to hire the irresistible energies of
the imperial people, the skill against which the ablest chiefs of
Hindostan were helpless as infants, the discipline which had so often
triumphed over the frantic struggles of fanaticism and despair, the
unconquerable British courage which is never so sedate and stubborn as
towards the close of a doubtful and murderous day?

This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and what Hastings granted. A
bargain was soon struck. Each of the negotiators had what the other
wanted. Hastings was in need of funds to carry on the government of
Bengal, and to send remittances to London; and Sujah Dowlah had an ample
revenue. Sujah Dowlah was bent on subjugating the Rohillas; and Hastings
had at his disposal the only force by which the Rohillas could be
subjugated. It was agreed that an English army should be lent to the
Nabob Vizier, and that, for the loan, he should pay four hundred
thousand pounds sterling, besides defraying all the charge of the troops