as applicable to the state of Oude now as in 1823.

But if a weak man, by favour, fraud, or collusion, gets possession of
a small estate, as he often does, the consequences are more serious
than where the strong man gets it. The ousted proprietors fight "to
the death" to recover possession; and the new man forms a gang of the
most atrocious ruffians he can collect, to defend his possession. He
cannot afford to pay them, and permits them to subsist on plunder. In
the contest the estate itself and many around it become waste, and
the fellow who has usurped it, often--nolens-volens--becomes a
systematic leader of banditti; and converts the deserted villages
into strongholds and dens of robbers. I shall have occasion to
describe many instances of this kind as I proceed in my Diary.

Dursung Sing was strong both in troops and Court favour, and he
systematically plundered and kept down the great landholders
throughout the districts under his charge, but protected the
cultivators, and even the smaller land proprietors, whose estates
could not be conveniently added to his own. When the Court found the
barons in any district grow refractory, under weak governors, they
gave the contract of it to Dursun Sing, as the only officer who could
plunder and reduce them to order. During the short time that he held
the districts of Gonda and Bahraetch in 1836, he did little mischief.
He merely ascertained the character and substance of the great
landholders, exacted from the weaker all that they could pay, and
"bided his time." When he resumed the charge in 1842, the greater
landholders had become strong and substantial; and he was commanded
by the Durbar to coerce and make them pay all the arrears of revenue
due, or pretended to be due, by them.

Nothing loth, he proceeded to seize and plunder them all, one after
the other, and put their estates under the management of his own
officers. The young Rajah of Bulrampoor had gone into the Goruckpoor
district, to visit his friend, the Rajah of Basee, Mahpaul Sing, when
Dursun Sing marched suddenly to his capital at the head of a large
force. The garrison of the small stronghold was taken by surprise;
and, in the absence of their chief, soon induced to surrender, on a
promise of leave to depart with all their property. They passed over
into a small island in the river, which flows close by; and as soon
as Dursun Sing saw them collected together in that small space, he
opened his guns and mus