urh, on the Ganges,
and resided there, with his family, till June 1830, when he was
invited back by Nusseer-do Deen Hyder, to assume the office of prime
minister. He held the office till August 1832, when he was removed by
the intrigues of the Kumboos, Taj-od Deen Hoseyn, and Sobhan Allee
Khan, who persuaded the King that he was trying to get him removed
from the throne, by reporting to the British Government the murder of
some females, which had, it is said, actually taken place in the
palace. Hakeem Mehndee was invited from his retirement by Mahomed
Allee Shah, and again appointed minister in 1837; but he died three
months after, on the 24th of December, 1837.

During the thirty years which have elapsed since Hakeem Mehndee lost
the contract of Mahomdee, there have been no less than seventeen
governors, fifteen of whom have been contractors; and the district
has gradually declined from what it was, when he left it, to what it
was when he took it--that is from a rent-roll of seven lacs of rupees
a-year, under which all the people were happy and prosperous, to one
of three, under which all the people are wretched. The manager,
Krishun Sahae, who has been treated as already described, would, in a
few years, have made it what it was when the Hakeem left it, had he
been made to feel secure in his tenure of office, and properly
encouraged and supported. He had, in the three months he had charge,
invited back from our bordering districts hundreds of the best
classes of landholders and cultivators, who had been driven off by
the rapacity of his predecessor, re-established them in their
villages and set them to work in good spirit, to restore the lands
which had lain waste from the time they deserted them; and induced
hundreds to convert to sugar-cane cultivation the lands which they
had destined for humbler crops, in the assurance, of the security
which they were to enjoy under his rule. The one class tells me, they
must suspend all labours upon the waste lands till they can learn the
character of his successor; and the other, that they must content
themselves with the humbler crops till they can see whether the
richer and more costly ones will be safe from his grasp, or that of
the agents, whom he may employ to manage the district for him. No man
is safe for a moment under such a Government, either in his person,
his character, his office, or his possession; and with such a feeling
of insecurity among all classes, it is imp