uting it, punished by the Durbar,
but he can rarely hope to get the sipahee himself punished.

In a case that occurred shortly before I took charge, a sipahee
complained that a tallookdar had removed him, or his friends, from
their village by over exactions, demanding two thousand eight hundred
rupees a-year instead of eight hundred. An ameen was sent out to the
district to settle the affair. Having some influence at Court, he got
the sipahee put into possession, at the rate of eight hundred, and
obtained from him a pledge to pay to him, the ameen, a large portion
of the _two thousand_ profit! The tallookdar, being a powerful man,
made the contractor reduce his demand upon his estate, of which the
village was a part, in proportion; and the contractor made the
Government give him credit for the whole two thousand eight hundred,
which the estate was well able to pay, in any other hands, and ought
to have paid. The holder continued, I believe, to pay the ameen, who
continued to give him the benefit of his influence at Court. Cases of
this kind are not uncommon. The Resident is expected by commandants
of corps and companies to secure every native officer and sipahee in
the possession of his estate at a fixed rate, in perpetuity; and as
many of their relations and friends as may contrive to have their
claims presented through the Resident in their names. He is expected
to adjust all disputes that may arise between them and their co-
sharers and neighbours; or between them and their landholders and
Government officers; to examine all their complicated accounts of
collections and balances, fair payments, and secret gratuities.

Sipahees commonly enter the service under false names, and give false
names to their relatives and places of abodes, in order that they may
not be traced if they desert; or that the truth may not be discovered
if they pretend to be of higher caste than they really are, or
otherwise offend. When they find, in the prosecution of their claims
through the Resident, that this is discovered, they find an alias for
each name, whether of person, place, or thing: the troubles and
perplexities which arise from this privilege are endless.

The Court of Directors, in a despatch dated the 4th March, 1840,
remarking on a report dated the 29th November, 1838, from the
Resident, Colonel Low, relating to abuses arising from the
interference of the Resident in respect to complaints preferred by
subjects of Oude servin