tors of this country and their families have been used, is known . all over these parts. A relation of them would swell this letter to an enormous size. I could not help compassionating such unparalleled misery, and my requests to the Vizir to shew lenity were frequent, but as fruitless as even those advices which I almost hourly gave him regarding the destruction of the villages; with respect to which he always promised fair, but did not observe one of his promises, nor cease to overspread the country with flames, till three days after the fate of Hafez Rhamet was decided." The Nabob had frankly and repeatedly assured Hastings that his intention was to exterminate the Rohillas, and every one who bore the name of Rohilla was either butchered, or found his safety in flight and in exile. Such were the diabolical deeds into which our government drove the native princes by their enormous exactions, or encouraged them in, only in the end to enslave them the more.
Before the connexion between the English and Oude, its revenue had exceeded three millions sterling, and was levied without being accused of deteriorating the country. In the year 1779, it did not exceed one half of that sum, and in the subsequent years it fell far below it, while the rate of taxation was increased, and the country exhibited every mark of oppressive exaction.[1] In this year the Nabob represented to the council the wretched condition to which he was reduced by their exactions: that the children of the deceased Nabob had subsisted in a very distressed manner for two years past; that the attendants, writers, and servants, had received no pay for that period;
- ↑ Mills, ii. 624.
