The English commander heard this astonishing proposition without any apparent emotion.  Being a man habituated to great affairs, versed in revolutions, and with a mind fortified against extraordinary events, he heard it and answered it without showing any signs of abhorrence or detestation,—­at the same time with a protestation that he would indeed serve him, the Nabob, but it should be upon such terms as honor and justice could support:  informing him, that an assurance for the Prince’s safety could not be given by him, until he had consulted Mr. Holwell, who was Governor, and his superior.

This conversation passed in the morning.  On that very morning, and whilst the transaction was hot, Major Calliaud writes to Mr. Holwell an account of it.  In his letter he informs him that he made an inquiry, without stating from whom, but that he did inquire the probability of the Nabob’s getting possession of the Prince from some persons, who assured him that there was no probability of the Prince’s intention to deliver himself to the Nabob on any terms.  Be that as it may, it is impossible not to remark that the whole transaction of the morning of the 15th of April was not very discouraging to the Nabob,—­not such as would induce him to consider this most detestable of all projects as a thing utterly unfeasible, and as such to abandon it.  The evening came on without anything to alter his opinion.  Major Calliaud that evening came to the Nabob’s tent to arrange some matters relative to the approaching campaign.  The business soon ended with regard to the campaign; but the proposal of the morning to Major Calliaud, as might be expected to happen, was in effect renewed.  Indeed, the form was a little different; but the substantial part remained the same.  Your Lordships will see what these alterations were.

In the evening scene the persons were more numerous.  On the part of the Company, Major Calliaud, Mr. Lushington, Mr. Knox, and the ambassador at the Nabob’s court, Mr. Warren Hastings.  On the part of the Moorish government, the Nabob himself, his son Meeran, a Persian secretary, and the Nabob’s head spy, an officer well known in that part of the world, and of some rank.  These were the persons of the drama in the evening scene.  The Nabob and his son did not wait for the Prince’s committing himself to their faith, which, it seems, Major Calliaud did not think likely to happen; so that one act of treachery is saved:  but another opened of as extraordinary a nature.  Intent and eager on the execution, and the more certain, of their design, they accepted the plan of a wicked wretch, principal servant of the then prime-minister to the Mogul, or themselves suggested it to him.  A person called Conery, dewan or principal steward to Camgar Khan, a great chief in the service of the Shahzada, or Prince, (now the Great Mogul, the sovereign under whom the Company holds their charter,) had, it seems, made a proposal to the Nabob, that, if a considerable territory then