he rate of this concealed portion--the collector trying to
augment, and the landlord trying to reduce it.

In a letter to the Resident, dated the 29th of March, 1823,
Government observes: "As some palliation of the mischief of our
forces being constantly employed in what might be too often termed
the cause of injustice and extortion, the Government in 1811
distinctly declared our right of previously investigating, and of
arbitrating the demands which its troops might be called upon to
support as also its resolution to exercise that right on all future
occasions. The execution of the important duty in question seems to
be almost invariably delegated by the Resident to the officers
commanding at the different stations, who, after receiving general
powers to attend to the requisitions of the amils, become the sole
judges of the individual cases, in which aid is to be afforded or
withheld; and the discretion again unavoidably descends from them, in
many instances, to the officers commanding parties detached from the
main body. It is obvious that an inquiry of this description can
afford but a partial check to, and a feeble security against,
injustice and oppression where specific engagements rarely exist, and
where the point at issue is frequently the demand for augmenting
rates of revenue, founded on alleged assets sufficient to meet that
increase.

"Neither is the aid thus afforded at all effectual for the purposes
of the Government of Oude, whether present or future, as is clear
from the annual repetition of the same scenes of resistance and
compulsion. As fast as disorders are suppressed in one quarter they
spring up in another. Forts that are this year dismantled are
restored again the next; the compulsion exercised upon particular
individuals in one season has no effect in producing more regularity
on their parts, or on that of others in the ensuing season, until the
same process has been again gone through; whilst the contempt and
odium attaching to a system of collecting the revenues, by the
habitual intervention of the troops of another State, infallibly tend
to aggravate the evil, by destroying all remains of confidence in his
Majesty, or respect for his authority."

The aid of British troops in the collection of the revenues of Oude
has long ceased to be afforded; but when they have been afforded for
the suppression of leaders of atrocious bands of robbers, who preyed
upon the people, and seized upon the land