History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c83.s4.10

v5.c83.s4.10

Shuja was merely a provincial governor. He could, as he pleased, let off some favoured body of merchants on easy terms during his own viceroyalty, but his grant (*nishan*) could not bind his successors in office, unless it was confirmed by the Emperor and turned into an imperial charter (*farman.*) According to the practice of the Mughal times, every charter (even when issued by a king or Emperor) had to be renewed by his successor on the throne, otherwise it would lose its validity,—though the renewal, in most cases, followed as a matter of course, on the payment of the customary presents of congratulation at the accession of the new monarch.* A fixed sum of Rs. 3,000 a year might have satisfied Shuja; it was his personal lookout to take the legal amount of duty or less; and English trade in Bengal was of too small a volume in his days. There was no reason why later governors of Bengal should be content with such a small sum and not levy the legal rate of 2½ p.c. on the goods, especially when the volume of English imports into Bengal had multiplied several times since Shuja's days.