This was a common practice among governors of districts at the close of last year; and thus they got credit, on account, for large sums, pretended to have been paid out of the revenues of last year; but, in reality, to be paid out of the revenues of the ensuing year.  But the collections are left to be made by the troops, for whose arrears of pay the revenue has been assigned, and they generally destroy or extort double what they are entitled to from their unhappy debtors.  This practice of assigning revenues due, or to be due, by landholders, for the arrears of pay due to the troops, is the source of much evil; and is had recourse to only when contractors and other collectors of revenue are unable to enforce payment in any other way; or require to make it appear that they have collected more than they really have; and to saddle the revenue of the ensuing year with the burthens properly incident upon those of the past.  The commandant of the troops commonly takes possession of the lands, upon the rents, or revenues, of which the payments have been assigned, and appropriates the whole produce to himself and his soldiers, without regard to the rights of landholders, farmers, cultivators, capitalists, or any other class of persons, who may have invested their capital and labour in the lands, or depend upon the crops for their subsistence.  The troops, too, are rendered unfit for service by such arrangements, since all their time is taken up in the more congenial duty of looking after the estate, till they have desolated it.  The officers and soldiers are converted into manorial under-stewards of the worst possible description.  They are available for no other duty till they have paid themselves all that may have been due or may become due to them during the time of their stay, and credit to Government but a small portion of what they exact from the landholders and cultivators, or consume or destroy as food, fodder, and fuel.

This system, injurious alike to the sovereign, the troops, and the people, is becoming every season more and more common in Oude; and must, in a few years, embrace nearly the whole of the land-revenue of the country.  It is denominated kubz, or contract, and is of two kinds, the “lakulame kubz,” or pledge to collect and pay a certain sum, for which the estate is held to be liable; and “wuslee kubz,” or pledge to pay to the collector or troops the precise sum which the commandant may be able to collect from the estate put under him.  In the first, the commandant who takes the kubz must pay to the Government collector or the troops the full sum for which the estate is held to be liable, whether he be able to collect it or not, and his kubz is valid at the Treasury, as so much money paid to the troops.  In the second, it is valid only as a pledge, to collect as much as he can, and to pay what he collects to the Government collector, or the troops he commands.  The collector, however, commonly