XXVIII. "SIR,--When this note is delivered to you by Hoolas
Roy, I have to desire that you order the two prisoners to be put _in
irons, keeping them from all food, &c., agreeable to my instructions of
yesterday_.
(Signed) "NATH^L MIDDLETON."
XXIX. That by the said unjust and rigorous proceeding the said eunuchs
were compelled to give their engagement for the payment of one hundred
and twenty thousand pounds sterling aforesaid, to be completed within
the period of one month; but after they had entered into the said
compulsory engagement, they were still kept in close imprisonment, and
the mother and grandmother of the Nabob were themselves held under a
strict guard,--although, at the same time, the confiscated estates were
actually in the Company's possession, and found to exceed the amount of
what they were rated at in the general list of confiscated estates,[64]
and although the Assistant Resident, Johnson, did confess, "that the
object of distressing the Bhow Begum was merely to obtain a
_ready-money_ instead of a _dilatory payment_, and that this ready-money
payment, if not paid, was recoverable in the course of a few months upon
the jaghires in his possession, and that therefore it was not worth
proceeding to any extremities, beyond the one described," (namely, the
confinement of the princesses, and the imprisonment and fettering of
their ministers,) "upon so respectable a family.
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