This he refused to do, and Anrod Sing came, with a force of two
thousand armed men, supported by a detachment from Captain Barlow's
regiment, and laid siege to his fort, on the pretence that he was
required to give security for the more punctual payment of the
revenue. To defend himself, he was obliged to call in the aid of his
clan and neighbours, and expend all that he had or could borrow, and,
at last, constrained to accept Anrod Sing's security, for no
merchants would lend money to a poor man in a state of siege. Anrod
Sing had now gone off to Lucknow, and bribed the person in charge of
the Huzoor Tuhseel, Gholam Ruza Khan, one of the most corrupt men in
the corrupt Court of Lucknow, to get an order issued by the Minister
to have him turned out, and the estate made over to Jhoda Sing, from
whom he would soon get it on pretence of accumulated balances, and
make it over, in perpetuity, to his brother, Dirj Bijee Sing. In this
attempt, the old man said, a good many lives must be lost and crops
destroyed, for his friends would not let him fall without a
struggle.*
[* The old man has been attacked and turned out with the loss of some
lives, in spite of the Resident's remonstrance, and the estate has
been made over to Jodha Sing, on the security for the payment of the
revenue of Anrod Sing. Jodha Sing is, naturally, of weak intellect;
and Anrod Sing will soon have him turned out as an incompetent
defaulter, and get the estate for himself, or for his younger
brother.
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