AT THE Jerusalem William heard disquieting news from Calcutta. William's old friend's son, Captain Brook Samson, and Nathaniel Smith, both back from Bengal, talked of anarchy in the Council and an orgy of private trading up country. Mir Jafar had fulfilled none of his promises and failed to produce any of the money he had pledged. Henry Vansittart, whom Clive had left as Governor, was a man of great integrity but he was quite unable to curb his fellow councillors’ excessive private trading in league with their Hindu banias. The councillors had persuaded the weak Governor to replace Mir Jafar with his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, who showed signs of firm leadership. Mir Kasim had shown his gratitude by showering the councillors with presents. But he had proved competent indeed. He had reformed his army and then tackled the English abuse of the dastaks by removing duties for everyone. In consternation, the councillors demanded the restoration of preferential treatment for the British. They were on the brink of war when Captain Smith left the Hooghly six months earlier.

In Leadenhall Street the situation was no better. The Bengal servants dismissed by the Court for refusing to sign covenants swearing they would take no ‘presents’ had returned with their ‘Asiatic wealth’, buying up rotten boroughs to obtain seats in Parliament and Company stock to qualify them to vote in the General Court. ‘Luxury’ was insidiously infiltrating the country, corrupting the body politic. No one objected to a man using his position to acquire a fortune to improve his own and his family's position; indeed it was his duty and the reason any man went out to India. But it should be earned through honest industry over many years. The sudden acquisition of untold wealth by ‘presents’ was dangerous. The prime example of this, Clive's jagir, had come between him and his old friend Laurence Sulivan, Chairman of the Court since 1758. Sulivan had succeeded in getting the jagir stopped in 1763. This had triggered a frenzied battle between the former friends for control of the Company and reduced the dignified formality of the annual election of the directors to a bear garden.