A very different view of this subject is taken by Major Carnac. In a letter to Clive, dated the 26th of February, 1763, he observes: "Mr. Vansittart's interview with the Nabob, instead of removing our grievances, has occasioned their being exceedingly multiplied and carried beyond sufferance. He, in conjunction with Mr. Hastings, without consulting the rest of the Board, established a set of regulations, whereby a duty of 9 per cent. is laid upon all articles of inland trade without exception; and the disputes of our gomastahs and others in our employ are subjected to the decisions of the Nabob's officers. These concessions are so evidently shameful and disadvantageous to us, that it is not to be conceived they could ever have been submitted to, except by persons who were bought into them; and, indeed, it is confidently asserted, and generally believed, that Mr. Vansittart got seven lacs by his visit to Mongyr. The members of the Council, then at Calcutta, passed a severe minute of censure upon the President's procedure, and summoned the absent members, in order to devise a speedy and effectual remedy for the complaints received from every quarter. They have been some time assembled, and have absolutely forbid the regulations being complied with, and have issued out orders to repel by force any insults that shall in future be offered, or obstructions to our trade. It is, indeed, high time," he adds, "to overset the ruinous system which Mr. Vansittart has so industriously endeavoured to establish: by a strange contradiction, he deposes one Nabob under pretence of mal-administration, and then asserts the successor to be independent, and master of his own actions, and uses all possible means to render him so, and to increase his power. We have so sensibly felt the ill use made thereof by Cossim Ali Khan, that the man must be wilfully blind who does not see the necessity of immediately checking his career, and the consequences that must result from his being suffered to run on." From these observations, it may safely be concluded, that the gallant Major was a better soldier than statesman. Footnote 221: