Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c30.s2.2

v2.c30.s2.2

The highest noble in the land and hereditary claimant to the imperial Chancellorship was Imad-ul-mulk. But apart from the deadly malignity which he bore to Shah Alam and his kin, Imad had fallen off from the high standard of capacity that he had displayed in the struggle with Safdar Jang six years earlier. He seems to have now taken after his maternal grandfather, the former wazir Qamruddin Khan Itimad-ud-daulah, and found the highest wisdom in letting matters drift and doing nothing himself. But he lacked that gay toper's uniform courtesy, geniality of spirit, and aversion to bloodshed. Though his intellect was very keen, his capacity for action seems to have been paralysed. To the licentiousness and sloth which he shared with most other nobles, he added a deceitfulness, cowardice and sadistic love of cruelty all his own. Jean Law, who often met him, writes, "I have not seen in his conduct anything but much deception and a cruelty that revolts. He has almost always the rosary in his hand, but his devotion is nothing but hypocrisy. He caused to be inhumanly massacred those in whom he appeared to have the greatest confidence and to whom he was actually indebted for his elevation." [Memoire, 179.]