The Nazim has six regiments, and part of a seventh, on duty under him, making, nominally, six thousand fighting men, but that he cannot, he tells me, muster two thousand; and out of the two thousand, not five hundred would, he says be ready to fight on emergency.  All the commandants of corps reside at Court, knowing nothing whatever of their duties, and never seeing their regiments.  They are mere children, or Court favourites, worse than children.  He has, nominally, forty-two guns, of various calibre; but he, with great difficulty, collected bullocks enough to draw the three small guns he brought with him from Sultanpoor, to salute the Resident, on his entering his district.  I looked at them in the evening.  They were seventy-four in number, but none of them were in a serviceable condition, and the greater part were small, merely skin and bone.  He was obliged to purchase powder in the bazaar for the salutes; and said, that when he entered his charge two months ago, the usual salute of seven guns, for himself, could not be fired for want of powder, and he was obliged to send to the bazaar to purchase what was required.  The bazaar-powder used by the Oude troops is about one-third of the strength of the powder used by our troops.  His authority is despised by all the tallookdars of the district, many of whom refuse to pay any rent, defy the Government, and plunder the country, as all their rents are insufficient to pay the armed bands which they keep up.  All his numerous applications to Court, for more and better troops and establishments, are disregarded, and he is helpless.  He cannot collect the revenue, or coerce the refractory landholders and robbers, who prey upon the country.*

[* The Nazim for 1850-51, got both Captain Magness’s and Captain Banbury’s regiments.]

He says that the two companies and two guns, which were sent out at the Resident’s urgent recommendation, to take possession of Shahgunge, and prevent the two brothers, Maun Sing and Rughbur Sing, from disturbing the peace of the country, in their contests with each other, joined Maun Sing, as partisan; to oppose his brother; and that Maun Sing has taken for himself all the bynamah lands, from which his brother, Rughbur Sing, has been ousted, under the favour of the minister.  He tells me also, that Beebee Sogura, the lady who holds the estate of Muneearpoor, and pays fifty thousand rupees a-year to the Government, was seized by Wajid Allee, his predecessor, before he made over charge of the district to him, and made over to a body of troops, on condition, that she should enter into engagement to pay to them the ten months’ arrears of pay due to them, out of the rents of the ensuing year; and that they should give him receipts for the full amount of these arrears of pay at once, to be forwarded to the Durbar, that he might get credit for the amount in his accounts for last year—­that she has paid them fifteen thousand rupees, but can collect no more from her tenants, as the crops are all being cut or destroyed by the troops, and she is in close confinement, and treated with cruel indignity.  The rent-roll of her estate is, it is said, equal to one hundred thousand rupees a year.