The eldest son was a trooper in the Honourable Company’s 8th Regiment of Light Cavalry; and while still a very young man, and home on furlough, he attracted the attention of Saadnt Allee Khan, the sovereign of Oude, whom he attended on a sporting excursion.  He was very tall, and exceedingly handsome; and, on one occasion, saved his sovereign’s life from the sword of an assassin.  He became one of Saadut Alee’s favourite orderlies, and rose to the command of a squadron.  In a fine picture of Saadut Allee and his Court on the occasion of a Durbar, at which the Resident, Colonel Scott, and his suite were present, Bukhtawar Sing is represented in the dress he wore as an orderly cavalry officer.  This picture is still preserved at Lucknow.  His brothers, Dursun, Incha, and Davey Sing became, one after the other, orderlies in the same manner, under the influence of Bukhtawar Sing, during the reign of Saadnt Allee, and his son, Ghazee-od Deen.  Dursan Sing got the command of a regiment of Nujeebs in 1814, and Incha Sing and Davey Sing rose in favour and rank, both civil and military.

Bhudursa and five other villages were held in proprietary right by the members of a family of Syuds.  They enjoyed Bhudursa rent free, and still hold it; but the other five villages (Kyl, Mahdono, Tindooa, Teroo, and Pursun) were bestowed, in jagheer, upon another Syud, a Court favourite, Khoda Buksh, in 1814.  He fell into disfavour in 1816, and all these and other villages were let, in 1817, to Dursun Sing, in farm, at 60,000 rupees a-year.  The bestowal of an estate in jagheer, or farm, ought not to interfere with the rights of the proprietors of the lands comprised in it, as the sovereign transfers merely his own territorial rights, not theirs; but Dursun Sing, before the year 1820, had, by rack-renting, lending on mortgage, and other fraudulent or violent means, deprived all the Syud proprietors of their lands in the other five villages.  They were, however, still left in possession of Bhudursa.  He pursued the same system, as far as possible, in the other districts, which were, from time to time, placed under him, as contractor for the revenue.  He held the contract for Sultanpoor and other districts, altogether yielding fifty-nine lacs of rupees a-year, in 1827; and it was then that he first bethought himself of securing his family permanently in the possession of the lands he had seized, or might seize upon, by bynamahs, or deeds of sale, from the old proprietors.

He imposed upon the lands he coveted, rates which he knew they could never pay; took all the property of the proprietors for rent, or for the wages of the mounted and foot soldiers, whom he placed over them, or quartered upon their villages, to enforce his demands; seized any neighbouring banker or capitalist whom he could lay hold of, and by confinement and harsh treatment, made him stand security for the suffering proprietors, for sums they never owed; and when these proprietors were made to appear to be irretrievably