GON
543
was raised by the advent of a timely reinforcement of Bisens, and the to be satisfied with a partial submission, and the promise to pay a fixed tribute. For the next seventy years a series of powerful Bisen rajas retained a semi-independence, and engaged separately for the whole of their five ancestral parganas. It was not till the murder of Raja Hindupat Singh, when the Lucknow Government was able to get into its power the boy successor, Gumiin Singh, that the Gonda principality was broken up, and the nazim collected the revenue himself from village headmen. In the meantime Guwarich and the northern parganas were included in the Bahraich nizamat, while Manikapur and Babhnipair formed part of Gorakhpur, to which, when the Gonda raj was broken up, were added the present parganas of Mahadewa and Nawabganj. siege
nawab had
On the cession of Gorakhpur to the English, the Rehli pargana, as the above tract was called, went with the remainder of that sarkar, and the zamindars still show copies of judgment of the High Court of Benares, delivered at the commencement of this century. After a few years of British rule, Eehli was exchanged for pargana Handia in Jaunpur, very much to the advantage of the nawab's government. In the north the Lucknow officials had completely broken the power of the Utraula raja, and collected the rent direct from every village in his pargana. Balrampur and Tulsipur held
out, and,
though worsted in many
fights,
managed to maintain their positions as chieftains, and were let off with a lump assessment on their whole raj, which left them very considerable proThe lords of Manikapur and Babhnipair in the same way were fits. allowed to collect the rents in their own villages, and pay the revenue in a lump sum to the nazim. Up to the commencement of the century, there was nothing in the whole
district at all like the taluqas of the rest of Gudh. hereditary chieftains were each supreme within the territorial limits of his raj and as long as they maintained that position, the g'uas'i-fortuitous agglomerations of villages, held on varying leases by men with every variety and degree of right, were impossible. As soon as Gonda and IJtraula were broken up, and held direct by the ofiicial collectors, taluqas sprang into existence. The nazims found it convenient, and in some cases necessary, to let large numbers of villages to wealthy individuals, and the taluqdar pure, the mere farmer of Government revenue, without any recognised right but what was conveyed by that position, became frequent. As a rule they lasted a very short time, and their small collections of villages fell into the net of the great Pandes, with whose power and wealth no one The dispossessed rajas of Utraula and in the district could compete. Gonda themselves, like their brethren elsewhere, attempted to acquire taluqas and combine the character of revenue farmer with that of feudal The Pathan succeeded for a few years, but finally had to content lord. himself with the few villages assigned for his support. The Bisens put togetherthe magnificent estate of Bishambharpur. The majority of the rajas retained till annexation the position enjoyed by the chiefs of Baiswaraand Partabgarh till the end of the eighteenth century, and the only true taluqas were those of Singha Chanda and Akbarpur, held by the Pandes, and Bishambharpur by the Gonda raja. During their several tenures of power as nazims of Gonda and Bahraich, the family of Darshan Singh had
The
