native friends rankled in the mind of a ruler who saw himself robbed of much revenue by the tricks and rogueries that flourished everywhere under the English flag.
By virtue of former treaties the Company's goods were exempt from all tolls and duties in any part of Bengal. A dastak or pass, signed by the English Governor, secured a free passage for the goods. It was never intended to cover the private trade of the Company's servants, still less that of natives subject to the Nawáb of Bengal. But out of the exemption grew up a vast system of open smuggling, in which the Company's servants led the way. Every gumáshta or middleman, every native adventurer who could hire a dastak or fly a Company's flag, cheated the revenue in the same fashion. It was said that the youngest writer in the Company's service could make two or three thousand rupees a month by selling passes to native customers.
Nor were these the only offences charged against our countrymen. The Nawáb himself, in a letter to Vansittart, complained that 'all the English chiefs, with their gumáshtas, officers, and agents, in every district of the Government, act as collectors, renters, and magistrates, and, setting up the Company's colours, allow no power to my officers. And besides this, the gumáshtas and other servants in every district, in every market and village, carry on a trade in oil, fish, straw, bamboo, rice, paddy, betel-nut, and other things; and every man with a Com-
