TWO:The manner in which Hastings had executed the orders of the Directors in this business showed that he was prepared to go all lengths in maintaining their interests in India. He immediately proceeded to give an equally striking proof of this. We have seen that when the Mogul Shah Allum applied to the British to assist him in recovering his territories, they promised to conduct him in triumph to Delhi, and place him firmly on the grand throne of all India; but when, in consequence of this engagement, he had made over to them by a public grant, Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, they found it inconvenient to fulfil their contract, and made over to him Allahabad and Corah instead, with an annual payment of twenty-six lacs of rupeestwo hundred and sixty thousand pounds. The payment of this large sum, too, was regarded by the Company, now in the deepest debt, as unnecessary, and Hastings had orders to reduce it. It appears that the money was at no time duly paid, and had now been withheld altogether for more than two years. The Mogul, thus disappointed in the promises of restoration by the English, and now again in the payment of this stipulated tribute, turned to the Mahrattas, and offered to make over the little provinces of Allahabad and Corah, on condition that they restored him to the sovereignty of Delhi. The Mahrattas gladly caught at this offer, and by the end of the year 1771 they had borne the Mogul in triumph into his ancient capital of Delhi. This was precisely such a case as the Directors were on the watch for. In their letter to Bengal of the 11th of November, 1768, they had said: "If the Emperor flings himself into the hands of the Mahrattas, or any other Power, we are disengaged from him, and it may open a fair opportunity of withholding the twenty-six lacs of rupees we now pay him." The opportunity had now come, and was immediately seized on by Hastings to rescind the payment of the money altogether, and he prepared to annex the two provinces of Allahabad and Corah. These were sold to the Nabob of Oude for fifty lacs of rupees. This bargain was settled between the vizier and Hastings at Benares, in September, 1773.This insult roused the fiery blood of Spain. The king and queen were excited to paroxysms of rage. They told Mr. William Stanhope that, in future, they would put confidence in no prince except his master, nor admit any one else to mediate for them in their negotiations. But George refused to break with France on their account, and ventured to remind Philip that he himself stood greatly in need of the alliance with France. Blinded, however, by their wounded pride, the King and Queen of Spain now turned their anger against England. They recalled their plenipotentiaries from the Congress of Cambray, which was sitting to settle the affairs of Europe, and professed their readiness to abandon all their hostility to the Emperor of Germany, and to concede all that they had so long demanded from him, on condition that he entered into a close alliance with them against France and England. They sent back to France the widow of the late Don Louis, and also Mademoiselle Beaujolais, another daughter of the late Regent Orleans, who had been contracted to Don Carlos.
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