1851, to make a tour through the country, and, after personal inspection, to report upon its actual state. The account he furnished was a continuous record of crime, misery, and oppression. Large tracts of fertile land were over-grown with jungle, the haunts of lawless characters, who levied blackmail at will on travellers and others.
9. Petty chiefs had established themselves in isolated forts, from whence they set the King's authority at defiance; and the Royal troops were constantly being ordered out into the district for the purpose of bringing such refractory landholders, as withheld the state revenue, under subjection. After some slight resistance the garrison would capitulate, and the King's troops, having ransacked the country in the neighbourhood and along the line of march, would return to the capital, bringing with them the Government dues, or so much of it as they were able to extort from the defaulters, who were terribly maltreated for their temerity, before being released, in order to act as a deterrent to others similarly disposed. To such an extent had this element of armed independence established itself that, in the year 1849, there were in Oudh 246 forts, or strongholds, mounted with 476 pieces of cannon, all held by landholders of the first class, chiefly Rajputs. Each fort was surrounded by a moat and a dense fence of living bamboos, through which cannon-shot could not penetrate, and men could not enter except by narrow and intricate paths. These fences were too green to be set on fire, and so completely under the range of matchlocks from the fort, that they could not be cut down by a besieging force.
10. The revenue was collected by Amils, aided by the 100,000 soldiers in the service of Zemindars, of whom half were in the King's pay. The Amils and other public functionaries were men without character, who obtained and retained their places by bribing court officials. They oppressed the weak by exacting, very often, more than what was due, but those that had forts, or by combination could withstand the Amils, made their own arrangements. The revenue was thus gradually diminished. Numerous dacoities (highway robbery), or other acts of violence attended with loss of life, were annually reported, and the reports of hundreds of others that occurred used to be suppressed by the corrupt officials. In short, neither life nor property was safe under this semblance of a Government, and there was no alternative but for the British to take over the administration.
11. Owing to these causes the country was in a state of perpetual unrest, so that it cannot be wondered that the peaceful inhabitants longed for a change. Colonel
