Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s9.t1.37.2

v1.c20.s9.t1.37.2

The forms of the Rana’s court, from time immemorial, prohibit all personal communication between the sovereign and his chiefs in matters of individual interest, by which indecorous altercation is avoided. But the ministers, whose office it was to obtain every information, did not make a rigid scrutiny into the title-deeds of the various estates previous to advancing the claims of the crown. This brave man had enemies, and he was too proud to have recourse to the common arts either of adulation or bribery to aid his cause. It was a satisfaction to find that the two principal towns demanded of him were embodied in a grant of Sangram Singh’s reign; and the absolute rights of the fisc, of which he had become possessed, were cut down to about fifteen thousand rupees of annual revenue. But there were other points on which he was even more tenacious than the surrender of these. Being the chief noble of the fine district of Badnor, which consisted of three hundred and sixty towns and villages, chiefly of feudal allotments (many of them of his own clan), he had taken advantage of the times to establish his influence over them, to assume the right of wardship of minors, and secure those services which were due to the prince, but which he wanted the power to enforce.