he Company,) and their
children, in a petition to the Resident, represented that soon after the
succession of Muzuffer Jung "their misery commenced. The jaghires [lands
and estates] on which they subsisted were disallowed. Our distress is
great: we have neither clothes nor food. Though we felt hurt at the idea
of explaining our situation, yet, could we have found a mode of
conveyance, we would have proceeded to Calcutta for redress. The
scarcity of grain this season is an additional misfortune. With
difficulty we support life. From your presence without the provinces we
expect relief. It is not the custom of the Company to deprive the
zemindars and jaghiredars of the means of subsistence. To your justice
we look up."

This being the situation of the person and family of the Nabob of
Furruckabad and his nearest relations, the state of the country and its
capital, prevented from all relief by the said Warren Hastings, is
described in the following words by the Resident, Willes.

"Almas Ali has taken the purgunnah of Marara at a very inadequate rent,
and his aumils have seized many adjacent villages: the purgunnahs of
Cocutmow and Souje are constantly plundered by his people. The
collection of the ghauts near Futtyghur has been seized by the Vizier's
_cutwal_, and the zemindars in four purgunnahs are so refractory as to
have fortified themselves in their gurries, and to refuse all payments
of revenue. This is the state of the purgunnahs. _And Furruckabad,
which was once the seat of great opulence and trade, is now daily
deserted by its inhabitants, its walls mouldering away, without police,
without protection, exposed to the depredations of a banditti of two or
three hundred robbers, who, night after night, enter it for plunder,
murdering all who oppose them. The ruin that has overtaken this country
is not to be wondered at, when it is considered that there has been no
state, no stable government, for many years._ There has been the Nabob
Vizier's authority, his ministers', the Residents' at Lucknow, the
sezauwils', the camp authority, the Nabob Muzuffer Jung's, and that of
twenty duans or advisers: no authority sufficiently predominant to
establish any regulations for the benefit of the country, whilst each
authority has been exerted, as opportunity offered, for temporary
purposes.

"Such being the present _deplorable_ state of Furruckabad and its
districts, in the ensuing year it will be in vain to look for revenue,