Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 28.2.4

28.2.4

But even supposing that the able and experienced man above, foregoing his journey home, should choose to stay amongst the new-comers, nevertheless, as matters are to be transacted in a Council, all his efforts and all his speeches prove to be of no avail, unless the three uninformed new-comers choose to listen to reason themselves, and to enforce his regulations on their side. We have even seen that these men, being very often misled by their informers and dependants, as well as carried away by a desire of becoming themselves the centre of all transactions, are very apt to pay no regard, and to afford no confidence, to the representations of the able man above; but on the contrary, sure of a preponderance enforced by a majority of, for instance, three or four to one, they put shackles to his feet, and hinder his proceeding in business; all which we have seen to pass, when the Governor-General was overpowered by General Clavering and his party; nor do matters go much otherwise in the six departments of Bengal. The fourth cause is what they call the Council. That Council is an assembly similar to that brought together by the second Qhalif, for the purpose of choosing a successor to himself, but in which his intention was to debar the females of the Prince of the Faithful from those rights fixed on them by Divine institution.