really beggar all description. All representations made by the Resident were useless to secure the punishment of these ruffians, who were, Colonel Sleeman tells us, "by all I saw considered more as terrible demons who delighted in blood and murder than as men endowed with any feelings of sympathy for their fellow creatures; and the Government, which employed such men in the management of districts with uncontrolled power, seemed to be utterly detested and abhorred." Raghbar Dyál Singh went off into British territory, to evade demands for balances, and nothing was done towards punishing him until Colonel Sleeman assumed charge of the office of Resident in January 1849. He induced the King to proclaim him an outlaw, and to offer a reward of three thousand rupees for his arrest, if he failed to come in within three months. "He never appeared, but continued to carry on his negotiations for restoration to power at Lucknow, through the very agents whom he had employed in the scenes above described." These latter, Bihári Lál, Gauri Shankar, Karm Hosen, and Maháráj Singh, had been arrested by Colonel Sleeman's influence and sent into Lucknow, with abundant evidence of their guilt. But they promptly purchased their way out of prison, and were never punished. Soon after this, Raghbar Dyál engaged in a contest with his brother Mán Singh for the estates which had been acquired by the latter and Darshan Singh in Sultanpur and Faizábád, by means of deeds of sale, or bainámas, which subsequently became notorious in our settlement courts. Mán Singh, however, proved too strong for him, and drove him out.

Raghbar Dyál had been succeeded in the contract of Gonda-Bahraich by his uncle Incha Singh, who obtained it at a reduction of four lákhs. He, also, absconded before the end of the year, and was followed by Muhammad Hosen, who raised funds to meet an enhanced demand by the murder of Rám Datt Pánde, the great agricultural capitalist of the Gonda district, all whose property he seized. This crime was committed less than a year after Colonel Sleeman had passed through the district, attended by both the future murderer and his victim. Muhammad Hosen sent in a report to Lucknow to the effect that Rám Datt had defaulted

on account both of his own estate, and of other landholders for whom he had given security, and when pressed for a settlement of his liabilities had attacked the Názim and his men, and been killed by the latter in self-defence. The real facts were that, only eight days before he was murdered, the banker had advanced Rs. 80,000 to the Názim, and had declined to increase his pledges of security until he had further consulted the landholders for whom he had given them. The minister, however (who was "certainly an accessory to this murder after the fact, while there are strong grounds to believe that he was so before the fact"), by order of the King, presented Muhammad Hosen with a dress of honour, and conveyed to him the thanks of His Majesty for having crushed so notorious a rebel! The Resident, with the assistance of the British magistrate of Gorakhpur, Mr. Chester, elicited the truth, and Muhammad Hosen was pressed so hard that he came back from Gorakhpur where he had taken refuge, and surrendered himself at Lucknow. Being, however, a Svad and a Shia, he could not be convicted of murder for the killing of a mere Hindú, and was acquitted by the mujtahid, or judge. "No Shia," writes Colonel Sleeman, "could be sentenced to death for the murder even of a Sunni, at Lucknow, much less for that of a Hindú. If a Hindú murders a Hindú, and consents to become a Musalmán, he cannot be so sentenced; and if he consents to become so after sentence has been passed, it cannot be carried into execution. Such is the law, and such the every-day practice." It only remains to be added that none of the plundered property of the banker was ever recovered by his family.

The Gonda district had had the advantage of being in great part included in the Bahu Begam's jághír, until her death in 1815. It suffered heavily under Raghbar Dyál, though less so than Bahraich. Colonel Sleeman found but a small portion of it under tillage, and the better classes of cultivators, Kurmís, Muráos and Káchhis, almost non-existent. In 1854 Captain Orr reported that it was fast recovering under the beneficent rule of Sadhan Lál, Kayáth, who was de facto Názim, though nominally only the Názim's Náib, or deputy. He had an excellent lieutenant in Bhya Shioratan

Singh, Chauhán, an old gentleman who is still alive and Sadhan Lál paid seventeen lákhs of rupees

much respected.

for Gonda and Bahraich, and governed leniently.

Crossing the Ghághra at Faizábád, Colonel Sleeman found himself in the Sultánpur Nizámat, which included, besides the modern district of Sultánpur, Aldemau, Jagdíspur, Pratábgarh, and Pachhimráth, by which latter is here intended, not the old division of that name, which comprised more than a fifth of Oudh, but the modern pargana, lying to the south and west of Faizábád. This huge tract, as well as Dariábád and Radauli, amounting in all to more than one-third of Oudh, had been held by Darshan Singh, and after him by Mán Singh, for several years previous to 1847. In that and the preceding year, Raghbar Dyál was in possession of GondaBahraich, and thus the family held between them, with practically unlimited powers, more than one-half of the province. In 1847, A'gha Ali, the "Aghái Sahib," was appointed Názim in place of Mán Singh, nominally on the amání principle, but it was perfectly well understood that he was to pay a fixed sum. Spasmodic attempts had been made from time to time since the death of S'ádat Ali to enforce the amání system which he had worked so successfully, but they had always failed. Ghází-ud-dín, within two years of his father's death, reverted to the ijára method, and though he allowed trust management to be re-adopted at the instance of Colonel Baillie, it was given up in despair after two years' trial. Under Nasír-ud-dín, Hakím Mehndi being minister, and Mr. Maddock and, after him, Colonel Low, Residents, the effort was renewed, but again abandoned after two years. Under Muhammad Ali Sháh, while Sharf-ud-daulah was Minister, and Colonels Low and Caulfield, Residents, lands. yielding an annual revenue of thirty-five lákhs were made amání, and both Sharf-ud-daulah, and his successor Amínud-daulah, seem to have done their best to make the system work, but without success. The jára system, however, does not seem to have been much abused under this king, for Colonel Low recorded in 1841 that any farmer who paid his revenue regularly might feel confident of being allowed to retain his farm, and some motive was thus pro

vided for conciliation and good management. In 1847, Lord Hardinge had urged Wájid Ali Sháh to try amání collection once more, and a specimen of it was now to be seen in Agha Ali's management of Sultánpur. So far as the change was anything more than nominal, it seems to have been for the worse. Nothing like a fixed assessment for a term of years was attempted, and every collector was really bound to pay a fixed sum. The more frequently changes took place among the higher officials, the greater were the profits of the Lucknow parasites, whose influence made and unmade Názims and Chakladárs. There were the same abuses of authority, the same rack-renting, the same uncertainty, the same bribery and corruption, under both systems, and Major Troup, Captain Bunbury, and Captain Patrick Orr, of the Oudh auxiliary force, and Captain Alexander Orr, of the police, were all agreed that while the Government was far more robbed, the condition of the peasantry was still worse under amání management as it was then worked, than it had been under ijáradárs like Darshan Singh. A'gha Ali saved himself the trouble and expense of collecting the revenue by a free resort to the device known as kabz, i.e. collection by troops on their own responsibility. Kabz was of two sorts, lákalámí, or unconditional, and wusúlí. The first was where a commandant gave a pledge to collect and pay, either to the Názim or to his troops, a fixed sum assessed on the estate made over to him. In the second he only agreed to pay whatever he might be able to collect. The difference between the two was analogous to that between ijára and amání management, and, so far as the rent-payer was concerned, was practically very little. The lákalámi pledge alone was theoretically accepted at the Lucknow treasury as equivalent to an actual disbursement; but both had the same practical effect, for the troops might be fully trusted to get their pay out of an estate, if they had to sell every living thing on it to do so. A more ruinous or demoralising system it would be hard to conceive. The only reason for its adoption was its convenience to the Názim, and the troops had no alternative but to accept the kabz or remain unpaid.

A'gha Ali had immense power throughout the Sultanpur

Nizámat.

It

He had the control of a considerable military force, including two of the komakhia, or auxiliary regiments, which were the least inefficient troops in Oudh. All his Chakladárs were his relatives. Thus, A'gha Haidar, Chakladár of Sultanpur, and A'gha Hosen, of Aldemau, were his brothers; Ata Ali, collector of Pachhimráth, and Syad Hosen, of Radauli, were his uncles; and they all played into his hands. The chief Taluqdárs of Baiswára were at this time, i.e. 1849-1850, under Huzúr Tahsil, i.e. they paid their revenue directly into the head-quarters treasury, and not through the medium of the Názim or Chakladár. This privilege, which was shared by the Mahdona estate of Mán Singh, saved its possessors from arbitrary official exactions, and the cultivators were not liable to forced labour. was, however, as a matter of course, distasteful to the collectors, and in 1851 A'gha Ali stipulated that it should be abolished throughout his Nizámat. The gross revenue of Sultanpur was estimated, roughly speaking, at thirtysix lakhs, of which nine lákhs were payable on account of Huzúr Tahsil estates. Of the remaining twenty-seven lákhs which passed through his hands, A'gha Ali "accounted for " seventeen lakhs to the Government, and retained the other ten for administrative purposes. Out of the seventeen lákhs accounted for, came the samjhota, or pay of troops, and all costs of repairs to forts, erection of cantonments, ammunition, and feed of cattle and elephants. The real amount expended on this latter item was almost nil, but the nominal sum was very considerable. Another lákh probably found its way into the Názim's coffers in the shape of siwáe, or extra items, in addition to the regular revenue demand, and of fees from firáris, or absconded landholders, who were returned in the accounts as paying nothing, but who really paid very highly for protection. The maintenance of the news-writers, who had been hitherto kept up as a check on collectors, was regarded as an unnecessary precaution under amání management, and discontinued. That this, however, was no great loss may be gathered from the glimpse which we have already been afforded of the efficiency of the members of this body who were attached to Raghbar Dyál's