following upon them. These official records must have been a sort of Oriental Hansard and quite harmless, if not useful, but Roe, whose notions were drawn from the era of England's history when the reporting of the proceedings of Parliament was a high crime and misdemeanour, was shocked at the idea that the report of the day's durbar discussions could be purchased for two shillings, and that "the common base people" should "know as much as the Council of the newes of the day," with the result that "the King's new resolutions were tossed and censured by every rascall."
All the time that Roe was thus basking in the sun of imperial favour the question of the treaty was progressing but slowly. Asaf Khan, while making a pretence of examining the questions at issue, took good care that nothing should be done to give the foreigner a foothold in the country. His attitude was not entirely the outcome of self interest or even of prejudice. The treaty for which Roe asked was an instrument at that time not only quite unfamiliar to the Mogul government, but in direct opposition to its traditions. The theory upon which its despotic power was built was that the Emperor was so superior a being that he could not be bound by engagements of a permanent character. What he felt at liberty to give he must be free to take away if it pleased him so to do.
Viewed from this standpoint the constant changes of policy of which the English in the early days of their appearance in India were the victims become intelligible. The Mogul's apparent vacillation was not the mere working of an unstable mind, but the outcome of a policy deliberately and consistently applied as an essential part of the state system.
