The young Warren Hastings, now the Company’s Resident (effectively ambassador) at Murshidabad, had been the first to sound the alarm, urging his boss to stay on and settle the anarchy he had helped unleash. In particular, he cited the growing instability at the Murshidabad court. Just before Clive left, Mir Jafar had been able to pay only three of his army’s thirteen months’ arrears of pay. As a result the unpaid troops were openly mutinous and some were starving: ‘their horses are mere skeletons,’ he wrote, ‘and their riders little better. Even the Jamadars [officers] are many of them clothed
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