Storia do Mogor 210.3.1

210.3.1

Sometimes the soldiers sell their papers to these money-changers, who for a note of hand for one hundred rupees will give them twenty or twenty-five. It is by these and such-like extortions that these generals ruin the wretched soldier, who, unable to find other means of gaining his bread, is forced to remain on in his service. Speaking generally, it is impossible for them to escape such extortions, for these disorders reign throughout all the princes' establishments. If anyone resigns service at his own request, they deduct two months' pay. Actually, as I am writing on this subject, an affair has arisen at St. Thomé which proves the truth of what I say. One thousand soldiers from the fortress of Gingy (Jinjī), which is in the Carnate (Karnātik), have come to the aforesaid St. Thomé to pray the dīwān to give them enough to meet their expenses, not only for themselves, but for seven thousand others who had remained behind in the fortress. They ask this as a sum on account in respect of three years of pay owed to them by the king. At first he refused, but in spite of that they have so pressed him that at last he has given them five months' pay, half in money and half in old clothes, reckoned by him at a good deal above their value.