This is commonly a very long
process, for the force is seldom large enough to surround the place
at a safe distance from the walls and bamboo fence, so as to prevent
all access to provision of all kinds, which the garrison is sure to
get from their friends and allies in the neighbourhood, the garrison
generally having the sympathy of all the large landholders around,
and the besieging force being generally considered the common and
irreconcilable enemy of all.
As soon as the garrison escapes, it goes systematically and
diligently to work in plundering indiscriminately all the village
communities over the most fertile parts of the surrounding country,
which do not belong to baronial proprietors like themselves till it
has made the Government authorities agree to its terms, or reduced
the country to a waste. The leaders of the gang may sometimes
condescend to quicken the process by appropriating a portion of their
plunder to bribing some influential person at Court, who gets an
injunction issued to the local authorities to make some arrangement
for terminating the pillage and consequent loss of revenue, or he
will be superseded or forfeit his contract. The rebel then returns
with his followers, repairs all the mischief done to his fort,
improves its defences, and stipulates for a remission of his revenue
for a year or more, on account of the injury sustained by his crops
or granaries.
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