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NOVEMBER, 1918]
SIDE-LIGHTS ON OMICHUND
269
you." 24 On the 20th May, in a postscript to another letter to Clive, he remarks, "We are deceived and Omichund is a villain, but this to yourself." 25
Watts now, as far as possible, employed Petros in the room of Omichund, though he was careful not to arouse the suspicions of the latter. Petros was thus the principal go-between in the negotiations with Mir Ja'fir, who would have nothing to do with Omichund, whom he styled "an intriguing Gentoo [Hindu] without fortitude or honesty." 26 But Clive considered it dangerous to oppose him openly, although he had by this time the lowest opinion of him. 27
Having regard, therefore, to what was looked on as Omichund's treacherous nature, two treaties with Mir Ja'fir were drawn up: a false one containing a clause providing him with a substantial gratuity, and another, the true one, omitting any mention of him.28 Watts was instructed to flatter Omichund and lull any doubts that he might express by telling him that the Select Committee were "infinitely obliged to him " for the pains he had taken "to aggrandize the Company's affairs," and further, "that his name will be greater in England than ever it was in India." 29 In reply, Watts wrote, on the 23rd May, "We [Luke Scrafton and himself] shall either deceive Omichund as you mention, or pretend to have dropt the scheme and leave him intirely out of the secret, whichever on consultation we judge the most secure."30
Watts, Omichund and Petros were all this time still in Murshidâbâd, from whence Watts was anxious to escape to Calcutta before Surâju'ddaula could become aware of the plot to depose him. But in consequence of Omichund's intrigues with the Nawab and his officers, it was necessary to induce the former to depart before the others, and he was persuaded to set out for Calcutta with Scrafton on the 30th May. On the way down, however, he managed an interview with Râi Durlabh at Plassey (Palâsî, eight miles from Murshidâbâd) during which Watts surmised that he disclosed the conspiracy with Mir Ja'fir, while he himself got the first inkling of the contents of the false treaty. 1
On the 3rd June Omar (Aumee, 'Umr) Beg, Mir Ja'fir's confidential agent, was provided with copies of both treaties for his master's inspection, and on the 5th Petros took Watts concealed in a dooley to the palace of Mir Ja'fir at Murshidâbâd, and there the real treaty, drafted by the Select Committee, was signed. 3 Watts effected his escape a week later, on the evening of the 12th June, and it was during this period that the Armenian document, the subject of this paper, was received and transmitted to Clive.
From the evidence available, the letter in question could not have been written before Omichund left Murshidâbâd on the 30th May 1757, or after the 8th June, the date of a letter from Watts to Clive mentioning its receipt.
On the 5th June Clive wrote from the French Gardens (Calcutta) to Watts at Murshidâbâd: 33 "You assured Mr. Scrafton, that Omychund once gone, you had no
24 Orme MSS., India, vol. IX, pp. 2309-2310.
25 Ibid, p. 2310.
Orme, History of Indostan, vol. II, p. 150.
1 Orme MSS., India, vol. X, p. 2415.
28 The exact dates when the false treaty was shown to Omichund and when he found that he had been duped do not appear in the Records now available, but according to Orme (History, vol. II, pp. 158-159) the first inkling Omichund had of the false treaty was during a visit to Rai Durlabh on the night of the 30th May, and he first saw it on the 10th June through bribing a soribe (Ibid, p. 163), and was told of the real treaty by Clive and Scrafton on the 30th June (ibid, pp. 181-182).
so Ibid, vol. IX, p. 2415.
29 Orme MSS., India, vol. X, p. 2415.
31 Ibid, vol. IX, p. 2313; Orme, History, vol. II, p. 159.
33 Orme MSS., India, vol. IX, pp. 2313-2314.
Hill, Bengal in 1756-57, vol. II, p. 398.
