Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 22.1.6

22.1.6

All these matters were known to a few at the time; but they came fully to light when Vansittart landed in England, and when assaulted by an infinity of calumnies, he made the Directors understand, and with them the whole nation, that what Amyatt's party in all their public and private letters, constantly called the English trade, was nothing else than the private trade of their own party, set up these four or five years past. It must be added, that nothing was more common then, than to see English agents of all colours and denominations, (and they swarmed then in every part of Bengal) take up the farm of a town, mart, village, or district, hoist up the English flag on it of their own private authority, pay to the Navvab such a rent as they chose to part with, keep the rest to themselves, and act meanwhile as the most relentless, rapacious tyrants, setting at defiance the Navvab's authority everywhere, and in every instance. Nor are all these allegations a vain declamation. As soon as the English themselves became masters of the country, and took possession of it in their own names, the evils so much complained of by the Navvab as unsufferable, having come home to themselves, they first of all abolished all exemption of duties, as granted once to their own servants; that is, they abolished, as Sovereigns, the very exemption for which they had gone to war, as merchants;