‘Thuggee Sleeman’ made it the main business of his life to hunt down the criminals and to extirpate their secret society.  He recorded his experiences in the series of valuable publications described in the Bibliography.  In this brief memoir it is impossible to narrate in detail the thrilling story of the suppression of Thuggee, and I must be content to pass on and give in bare outline the main facts of Sleeman’s honourable career.[2]

While at Narsinghpur, Sleeman received on the 24th April, 1824, brevet rank as Captain.  In 1825, he was transferred, and on the 23rd September of the following year, was gazetted Captain.  In 1826, failure of health compelled him to take leave on medical certificate.  In March, 1828, Captain Sleeman assumed civil and executive charge of the Jabalpur (Jubbulpore) District, from which he was transferred to Sagar in January, 1831.  While stationed at Jabalpur, he married, on the 21st June, 1829, Amelie Josephine, the daughter of Count Blondin de Fontenne, a French nobleman, who, at the sacrifice of a considerable property, had managed to escape from the Revolution.  A lady informs the editor that she remembers Sleeman’s fine house at Jabalpur.  It stood in a large walled park, stocked with spotted deer.  Both house and park were destroyed when the railway was carried through the site.

Mr. C. Eraser, on return from leave in January, 1832, resumed charge of the revenue and civil duties of the Sagar district, leaving the magisterial duties to Captain Sleeman, who continued to discharge them till January, 1835.  By the Resolution of Government dated 10th January, 1835, Captain Sleeman was directed to fix his head-quarters at Jabalpur, and was appointed General Superintendent of the operations for the Suppression of Thuggee, being relieved from every other charge.  In 1835 his health again broke down, and he was obliged to take leave on medical certificate.  Accompanied by his wife and little son, he went into camp in November, 1835, and marched through the Jabalpur, Damoh, and Sagar districts of the Agency, and then through the Native States of Orchha, Datiya, and Gwalior, arriving at Agra on the 1st January, 1836.  After a brief halt at Agra, he proceeded through the Bharatpur State to Delhi and Meerut, and thence on leave to Simla.  During his march from Jabalpur to Meerut he amused himself by keeping the journal which forms the basis of the Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official.  The manuscript of this work (except the two supplementary chapters) was completed in 1839, though not given to the world till 1844.  On the 1st of February, 1837, in the twenty-eighth year of his service, Sleeman was gazetted Major.  During the same year he made a tour in the interior of the Himalayas, which he described at length in an unpublished journal.  Later in the year he went down to Calcutta to see his boy started on the voyage home.