They are satisfied, therefore, if they can
save their own tenants from pillage and slaughter. They find,
moreover, that the sufferings of others enable them to get
cultivators and useful tenants of all kinds upon their own estates,
on more easy terms, and to induce the smaller allodial or khalsa
proprietors around, to yield up their lands to them, and become their
tenants with less difficulty. It was in the same manner that the
great feudal barons aggrandised themselves in England, and all the
other countries of Europe, in the MIDDLE AGES.
In Oude all these great landholders look upon the Sovereign and his
officers--except when they happen to be in collusion with them for
the purpose of robbing or coercing others--as their natural enemies,
and will never trust themselves in their power without undoubted
pledges of personal security. The great feudal tenants of the Crown
in England, and the other nations of Europe, did the same, except
when they were in collusion with them for the purpose of robbing
others of their rights; or fought under their banners for the purpose
of robbing or destroying the subjects and servants of some other
Sovereign whom he chose to call his enemy.
Only one of these sources of union between the Sovereign and his
great landholders is in operation in Oude. Some of them are every
year in collusion with the governors of districts for the purpose of
coercing and robbing others; but the Sovereign can never unite them
under his banners for the purpose of invading and plundering any
other country, and thereby securing for himself and them present
_glory_, wealth, and high-sounding titles, and the admiration and
applause of future generations.
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