[33] In proportion to these treasons and violences, which
ruined the people, the fund of the Nabob's debt grew and flourished.
Among the victims to this magnificent plan of universal plunder, worthy
of the heroic avarice of the projectors, you have all heard (and he has
made himself to be well remembered) of an Indian chief called Hyder Ali
Khan. This man possessed the western, as the Company, under the name of
the Nabob of Arcot, does the eastern division of the Carnatic. It was
among the leading measures in the design of this cabal (according to
their own emphatic language) to _extirpate_ this Hyder Ali.[34] They
declared the Nabob of Arcot to be his sovereign, and himself to be a
rebel, and publicly invested their instrument with the sovereignty of
the kingdom of Mysore. But their victim was not of the passive kind.
They were soon obliged to conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance
with this rebel, at the gates of Madras. Both before and since that
treaty, every principle of policy pointed out this power as a natural
alliance; and on his part it was courted by every sort of amicable
office. But the cabinet council of English creditors would not suffer
their Nabob of Arcot to sign the treaty, nor even to give to a prince at
least his equal the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy.[35] From
that time forward, a continued plot was carried on within the divan,
black and white, of the Nabob of Arcot, for the destruction of Hyder
Ali.
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