l88 HISTORY OF AURANGZIB. [CHAP. IX.
Jahan had urged Aurangzib to pay special atten- tion to the improvement of the peasantry and the extension of cultivation.
Shah Jahan's Aurangzib had promised to do impatience at the * ^
delay in improv- his best for these objects, and ing the revenue i j ^ i- ^- • ^t_
of the Deccan. appealed to his exertions in the
same direction during his first viceroyalty. He only pleaded for a sufficiently long tenure and the men and money necessary for his purpose. The Emperor, however, soon lost patience. Order after order was sent to the Prince to increase the cultivation and population. Aurangzib was hastily censured for his failure as an administrator, as the Emperor imagined it to be, and he was threatened with loss of income in order to make him increase his exertions. But he rightly pleaded that the depopulation and ravage caused by a generation of warfare, fol- lowed by ten years of mal-administration, could not be undone in two or three years. He had been (he said) silently and steadily promoting his object and had in three years succeeded in doubl- ing the revenue of many mahals.^ Very soon his viceroyalty was destined to become memorable for ever in the history of land-settlement in the Deccan.
- Adab, 20a & b, 26b, 28a, 32a & 6, 1440.
