Súbahdár that the East India Company should become the farmers, and offered a higher sum than any at which the monopoly had been previously rated. Mír Jafar was too shrewd a man not to recognize the enormous advantages which must accrue to his foreign protectors by his acquiescence in a scheme which would place in their hands the most important trade in the country. But he felt the impossibility of resistance. He was a bird in the hands of the fowler, and he agreed.
At length (April 14) the looked-for patents arrived. Accompanying that which gave to the usurpation of Mír Jafar the imperial sanction was a patent for Clive, creating him a noble of the Mughal empire, with the rank and title of a Mansabdar[1] of 6000 horse. The investiture took place the day following. Then, after marching to Bárh, the two armies separated, the Súbahdár proceeding to Murshidábád; Clive, after a short stay at that place, to Calcutta.
Clive had returned to Calcutta, May 24, absolute master of the situation. He had probed to the bottom the character of the Súbahdár, and had realized that so long as he himself should remain in India, and Mír Jafar on the masnad, the English need fear no attack. But, in the East, one man's life, especially
- ↑ For the nature of Mansab, and the functions of the holder of a Mansab (or Mansabdar) the reader is referred to Blochmann's Ain-i-Akbarí. By the original regulations of Akbar, who founded the order, the Mansabdars ranked from the Dahbashi, often Commander-in-Chief, to the Doh Hazárí, Commander of 10,000 horse, to the Mansabdars of 6000 downwards. Vide Ain-i-Akbarí (Blochmann's), p. 237 and onwards.
