streets, twelve men belonging to a merchant at Mirzapore, who had the
day before been wounded and plundered by a gang of robbers close
outside the walls of the town. Those who were able ran in to the
Amil, or chief of the district, who resides in the town; and begged
him to send some horsemen after the banditti, and intercept them as
they passed over the great plains. 'Send your own people', said he,
'or hire men to send. Am I here to look after the private affairs of
merchants and travellers, or to collect the revenues of the prince?'
Neither he, nor the prince himself, nor any other officer of the
public establishments ever dreamed that it was their duty to protect
the life, property, or character of travellers, or indeed of any
other human beings, save the members of their own families. In this
pithy question the Amil of Bhilsa described the nature and character
of the government. All the revenues of his immense dominions are
spent entirely in the maintenance of the court and camps of the
prince; and every officer employed beyond the boundary of the court
and camp considers his duties to be limited to the collection of the
revenue. Protected from all external enemies by our military forces,
which surround him on every side, his whole army is left to him for
purposes of parade and display; and having, according to his notions,
no use for them elsewhere, he concentrates them around his capital,
where he lives among them in the perpetual dread of mutiny and
assassination. He has nowhere any police, nor any establishment
whatever, for the protection of the life and property of his
subjects; nor has he, any more than his predecessors, ever, I
believe, for one moment thought that those from whose industry and
frugality he draws his revenues have any right whatever to expect
from him the use of such establishments in return. They have never
formed any legitimate part of the Maratha government, and, I fear,
never will.[10]

The misrule of such states, situated in the midst of our dominions,
is not without its use. There is, as Gibbon justly observes, 'a
strong propensity in human nature to depreciate the advantages, and
to magnify the evils, of the present times'; and, if the people had
not before their eyes such specimens of native rule to contrast with
ours, they would think more highly than they do of that of their past
Muhammadan and Hindoo sovereigns; and be much less disposed than they
are to estimate fairly the adva