30.  Thomas says that the overtures came from the Begam.  ’In a manner the most abject and desponding, she addressed Mr. Thomas . . . implored him to come to her assistance, and, finally, offered to pay any sum of money the Marathas should require, on condition they would reinstate her in the Jagir.  On receipt of these letters, Mr. Thomas, by an offer of 120,000 rupees, prevailed on Bapu Sindhia to make a movement towards Sardhana.’  After negotiation, Thomas marched to Khatauli, and ’publicly gave out that unless the Begam was reinstated in her authority, those who resisted must expect no mercy; and to give additional weight to this declaration, he apprised them that he was acting under the orders of the Maratha chiefs.’  After some difficulty, ’she was finally reinstated in the full authority of her Jagir’.  This version of the affair, it will be noticed, does not quite agree with that given more briefly by the author.

31.  The paper was written by a Muhammadan, and he would not write Christ the Son of God.  It is written ’In the name of God, and his Majesty Christ’.  The Muhammadans look upon Christ as the greatest of prophets before Muhammad; but the most binding article of their faith is this from the Koran, which they repeat every day:  ’I believe in God, who was never begot, nor has ever begotten, nor will ever have an equal,’—­alluding to the Christians’ belief in the Trinity. [W.  H. S.] For Mohammed’s opinion of Jesus Christ see especially chapters 4 and 5 of the Koran.

32.  To my mind the circumstances all tend to throw suspicion on the Begam.  The author evidently was disposed to form the beat possible opinion of her character and acts.

33.  After the Begam’s death the revenue settlement of the estate was made by Mr. Plowden, who writes in his report, as quoted in N.W.P.  Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. iii, p. 432, ’The rule seems to have been fully recognized and acted up to by the Begam which declared that, according to Muhammadan law, “there shall be left for every man who cultivates his lands as much as he requires for his own support, till the next crop be reaped, and that of his family, and for seed.  This much shall be left to him; what remains is land-tax, and shall go to the public treasury.”  For, considering her territory as a private estate and her subjects as serfs, she appropriated the whole produce of their labour, with the exception of what sufficed to keep body and soul together.  It was by these means . . . that a factitious state of prosperity was induced and maintained, which, though it might, and I believe did, deceive the Begam’s neighbours into an impression that her country was highly prosperous, could not delude the population into content and happiness.  Above the surface and to the eye all was smiling and prosperous, but within was rottenness and misery.  Under these circumstances the smallness of the above arrear is no proof of the fairness of the revenue.  It rather shows that the collections were as much as the Begam’s ingenuity could extract, and this balance being unrealizable, the demand was, by so much at least, too high.’  The statistics alluded to are: