Jaffier, who held a command in the neighbourhood. The intelligence was too welcome to be neglected; and Meer Cossim, proceeding to the cell of the hermit, made prisoners of his visitors, and took possession of their effects. The deposed Prince was forthwith taken back to Moorshedabad; and, it is said, was treated on the way with great indignity and cruelty.
Though Meer Jaffier felt, or affected some compassion for the prisoner, Meerun, his son, a youth whose character strongly resembled that of Suraja Dowlah, cherished no such weakness. By him the unhappy captive was doomed to death; but either from the prevalence of respect for the rank of the destined victim, or from a belief that Meer Jaffier would not sanction the deed, some difficulty was experienced in finding an executioner. At length the task was undertaken by a miscreant who had from infancy enjoyed the bounty, first of Aliverdi Khan, and subsequently of his grandson and successor, now a prisoner and destined for death. The favours which had been heaped on him formed no impediment to his undertaking the murder of the man to whom, and to whose family, the assassin was so deeply indebted. Many there were from whom Suraja Dowlah could look for nothing but vengeance – his death came from one of the few on whom he had a claim for gratitude! He had not completed the twentieth year of a profligate and scandalous life, nor the fifteenth month of a weak and cruel reign.
Little now remained but the performance of the pecuniary stipulations agreed upon between the British Government and Meer Jaffier. The wealth of the Soubahdar's treasury had been greatly overrated, but it was yet able to bear very heavy drafts. After some discussion, it was decided that one-half of the stipulated amount should be paid immediately, and the remainder at intervals within three years. The first payment seems to have been the cause of great delight. The money was packed in seven hundred chests, which being placed in one hundred boats, the whole proceeded down the river
