England with these offers, it is probable that parliament would have
taken such a step. Hastings seems to have been under this impression,
for when the adventurous officer arrived at the Dutch settlement of
Chinchura, on the Hooghly, and demanded a passage to England in one of
the company's ships, he wrote in reply, that he would not allow him
a passage in any ship sailing from the port of Calcutta. Nor did his
opposition end here. Having heard that the major had engaged a passage
in a Danish ship, he successfully exerted his influence to prevent
it; and as no other ship sailed for Europe that season, Morrison's
diplomatic career was brought to a premature close. Shortly after,
indeed, Shah Alum ceded both Corah and Allahabad to the Mahrattas,
which was considered as equivalent to a complete discharge from all the
obligations of Clive's treaty. The Mahrattas signified their intention
of taking immediate possession of Allahabad and Corah, and the Nabob of
Oude claimed the assistance of the English against them, and a garrison
was placed in Allahabad for its protection. This, for a brief season,
checked the rapacious Mahrattas; and the attention of Hastings was next
directed to the inroads which the Bootans had made in Cooch-Bahar, and
the devastations of the Senassie fakeers in the country round Bengal. Both
the Bootans and Senassies were checked, and soon after Hastings set out
on a visit to the Nabob of Oude, who had solicited a personal conference
at Benares, in order to arrange new bargains and treaties with the
English. This conference had reference chiefly to the annexation of the
Rohilla country, which was threatened by the Mahrattas, to the province
of Oude, which was at first agreed upon, but subsequently postponed; the
nabob fearing that the price he had agreed to pay for it was beyond his
present ability, and Hastings conceiving that such an enterprise would
be open to severe animadversion in England. During this conference,
however, Hastings committed as glaring an act of injustice as the
conquest of Rohilcund would have been. This was the sale of Allahabad
and Corah, to Sujah Dowla, for fifty lacs of rupees--twenty of which
were paid down on the spot, and the other of which were to be paid in
two years. By this act Shah Alum was deprived of his rightful patrimony.

The negociations between Hastings and the Nabob of Oude occupied three
weeks, and on his return to Calcutta, Hastings applied himself to
the admi