abstain from all open interference with the rest of the administration. They disbursed- to a Deputy Nawab (for the Nawab himself was now a mere pensioner) the costs of establishments; and they left the whole executive and judicial government nominally in his hands. Verelst, who succeeded Clive at Calcutta, writes that the President and Council "are repeatedly and peremptorily forbidden to avow any public authority in our names over the native officers, and enjoined to retain our primitive characters of merchants with the most scrupulous delicacy."
The consequences were but too evidently exemplified in the decline of commerce and cultivation, the diminution of specie, and the general distress; for the native officers were uncontrolled, while the Company received an immense revenue without possessing the means of protecting the people who paid it. Against such a system Verelst protested generously; and a futile attempt to mitigate its evils was made by appointing a few English servants of the Company to supervise the native agency.
It was not, however, until 1773 that the executive and judicial administration of the country was placed on a regular, though imperfect, footing by parliamentary ordinance. Up to this time, Anglo-Indian annals have recorded the vicissitudes of a contest, first, between commercial companies; next, between maritime nations; latterly between one powerful Company, representing the successful nation, and the native Indian princes. This latest stage of the contest was in reality
