Deceitful professions, promises, and engagements, which are adopted at a particular crisis to lull suspicion for the moment, can never be defended but in those extreme cases where, after confidence has been established, the violation of faith by one party enables him to take such advantage of the other as gives the latter no alternative except a counterplot, or submission to fraud and injustice. In such a case, the most scrupulous would find an excuse for the retaliation of deceit, provided it could be proved to be the only means of placing the parties on the footing upon which they stood before the aggressor broke faith, and, abusing the confidence placed in him, demanded terms of unreasonable and extravagant advantage. This appears to be the exact position in which Omichund stood. After vicissitudes of favour and disgrace, he had been restored to confidential employment, from which he had already derived great advantages. He must have been certain, had he continued faithful and honest, not only of recovering his losses, but of being liberally rewarded. Every consideration, however, of duty and of interest, gave way before a prospect of acquiring, by one well-timed and daring act of perfidy, great and sudden riches. "Secure to me, under a sealed treaty, thirty lacs of rupees, or I will this night inform the Nabob of your plot for his dethronement, and have you all put to death," was the direct emphatic meaning, if not exact words, of his speech to Mr. Watts. This is proved by three short notes written by that gentleman on the day the communication was made; by Clive's letters written the moment he learned what had passed; by the evidence of Mr. Sykes; and by the expedient which it was thought necessary to adopt, to disappoint his avarice and to guard against his treachery. Orme, describing the conduct of Omichund on this occasion, observes[179], "Grounded on his importance by knowing the secret, he held out the terror of betraying it to secure his own advantages. Whether he would have betrayed it is uncertain; for part of his fortune was in the power of the English, and he had the utmost vengeance of Jaffier and his confederates to fear. However, the experiment was not to be tried." The same author adds, "But, on the other hand, as his tales and artifices prevented Suraj-u-Dowlah from believing the representations of his most trusty servants, who early suspected, and at length were convinced, that the English were confederated with Jaffier, the twenty lacs of rupees he expected should have been paid to him, and he left to employ them in oblivion and contempt."