These, as a mere trust manager, he may not be able to give; and he
consents to take something less. The landholders know that where the
object is to exact the means to gratify influential persons about
Court, the Nazim would be likely to get good military support, if
driven to extremity, and consent to pay the greater part of what is
demanded. When the trust manager, by his liberal remittances to Court
patrons, gets all the troops he requires, he exacts the full
gratuities, and still higher and more numerous if strong enough. The
corps under Captains Magness, Bunbury, Barlow, and Subha Sing, are
called _komukee_, or auxiliary regiments; and they are every season,
and sometimes often in the same season, sold to the highest bidder as
a perquisite by the minister. The services of Captain Magness and
Captain Bunbury's corps were purchased in this way for 1850 and 1851,
by Aga Allee, the Nazim of Sultanpoor, and he has made the most of
them. No _contractor_ ever exacted higher _nazuranas_ or _gratuities_
than he has, by their aid, this season, though he still holds the
district as a trust manager. Ten, twenty, or thirty thousand rupees
are paid for the use of one of these regiments, according to the
exigency of the occasion, or the time for which it may be required.
The system of government under which Oude suffers during the reign of
the best king is a fearful one; and what must it be under a
sovereign, so indifferent as the present is, to the sufferings of his
people, to his own permanent interests, and to the duties and
responsibilities of his high station? Seeing that our Government
attached much importance to the change, from the _contract_ to the
_trust_ system of management, the present minister is putting a large
portion of the country under that system in the hope of blinding us.
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