"There seems to me to have been a combination between the blacks and whites, to divide all the revenues of the Company between them, for the Nabob knows nothing about the matter. Large sums have been taken out of both treasuries, by Mahommed Reza Cawn at Muxadabad, and by Nundcomar at Calcutta. Every day convinces me, that so long as that man with his instruments continue about him we shall never have that influence which appears to me absolutely necessary, as well for his own reputation as to prevent the revenues being dissipated on a set of plaguy rascals." The evidence which Clive about this time obtained from the officers of the Nabob, of the sums paid to the different public servants on the conclusion of the treaty, are stated in a letter to General Carnac[266], with some severe remarks on the conduct of those who, on that occasion, sacrificed the interest and honour of the public for venal objects. This subject would, in its details, lead us too far. Suffice it to say, that the strong measures which the discovery he made led him to adopt, particularly that of suspending several of the older civil officers from the service, added to the number of his enemies in a degree that made them more powerful in England than in India, and was the chief cause of that parliamentary inquiry into his conduct which took place on his return to his native country. Meanwhile, however, the honest course of investigation which he pursued, though fatiguing and painful to his mind, and severe on his spirits, left him resolute and composed in his sense of duty. He had a great object in view, the salvation of an empire, through the repression of wrong, and the amendment of the public character and morals. "Let me but have health sufficient to go through with the reformation we intend," says he, in writing to his friend Carnac, "and I shall die with satisfaction and in peace." The same feeling, which seems at this period to have deeply penetrated his mind, he expresses to many of his friends. Clive, it appears from several letters to other friends, had been, at this period, seriously hurt at the long, and, as he thought, the mysterious silence of General Carnac. He was at last relieved by a letter, which satisfactorily accounted for the apparent neglect of a friend for whom he cherished so sincere an esteem. The following extract from Clive's reply is singularly illustrative of his feelings, and of the principles on which he acted:—