History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

128 AIISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. II.

has perhaps been no other family that was permitted by the State to have its own initials or marks engrayed on the national com. A silver com was struck, probably at the Aurangabad mint, bearing the initial letters of Vikajis younger brother Pestanji Merji, and widely known after him as the Pestanshaw coin of the Nizam Government. In 1845 Raja Chandu Lal retired from office, and with that event began the slow decline which ultimately resulted in the bankruptcy of the family firm. The new minister proposed a settlement of the claim of Vikaji Merji, which amounted at that time to about thirty-seven lakhs of rupees, on the basis of payment at the rate of five annas less in the rupee. This proposal not being accepted, the Peshkar Raja Rambax caused a peremptory sequestration to be made of the provinces which had up to that time been mortgaged to Vikaji Merji and his brother. They presented petitions to the Nizam. They appealed to the Government of India, and ultimately to the late Court of Directors, and even to that last resource for relief, the British Parliament,—but all without effect. The British authorities refused to lend their aid in the matter on the avowed principle that the subjects of the British Government when advancing moneys to native States did so at their own risk, and that it could not depart from its invariable practice of not interferimg for the

realisation of such claims.