Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 26.1.1

26.1.1

The Author accounts for the peculiar character of the Indians, from the peculiarities of the soil — Indian Princes love their subjects, as fond parents do their children — On the contrary, the English hate the natives of India, and disdain their company — Twelve causes assigned for the diminution of revenue and population all over Bengal — The first, that the English are aliens — The second is their ignorance of the customs and usages of the country — Account of those usages — A Daroga of Audaulet-office — A Cazi — this last office greatly abused now — A Sadr-el-Sodur — Governor Hastings, informed in time, rescues an infinity of families from the oppressions of the actual Sadr — Fervent prayer of the Author's — The Daroga of the Audaulet, another Civil Judge, whose office is shockingly abused at this day — The Emperors and Rulers of Hindostan think it their duty to sit as Supreme Judges — Warning given to the Princes of Hindostan by the Author — Unsociableness and inaccessibleness of the English, another great defect of their Government — The Mohtesib, or Clerk of the Market — The Vacaa-naviss, and Sevana-naviss — The Emperor, by the means of the post, minutely informed every day of what happens in the remotest parts of the Empire — Two singular notes in the hand of the Emperor Aoreng-zib's — The Fodjdars, Military Commandants in some fortresses and some difficult countries — An infinity of persons in each province dependent immediately on the Emperor, and not on the respective Viceroys — Extents of duties expected from Fodjdars — Happy conditions of Indians under their native Princes, and latterly under Aaly-verdy-qhan — Third reason or cause, the Zemindars too loose, and too unrestrained, under the English Government — The Fodjdar's office, as it is excercised now, is become one of the main grievances of the natives — Fourth cause, this country having no apparent master, lies under all the disadvantages of a house untenanted — Men of confessed superior abilities eternally thwarted by majorities sent from home — Fifth cause, the subordinate rulers do not stay long enough in their employs — Benignity and tenderness of the Indian Emperors to the conquered — The natural insociableness of the English, as well as the inaccessibleness of their rulers, produces the first cause of the declension of these countries — The second is, the difference of language, manners, and way of life — The third is, the endless variations and mutations in posts of trust and importance — Slowness of proceedings in the Supreme Council, is the fourth — Differences in giving audience between the benignity and condescension of the ancient native rulers, and the superciliousness, and roughness of the present ones, is the fifth — The sixth is, the rapacity of the English, who engross all the trade of the country ;