Sobhan Allee, his deputy, was made to pay to the treasury seven lacs of rupees, and in gratuities to court favourites five lacs more.  Roshun-od Dowlah was one of the principal members of the old aristocracy of Lucknow, and connected remotely with the royal family; and he got off more easily in consequence, compared with his means, than his deputy, who had no such advantages, and was known to have been the minister’s guide in all things, though he would never consent to hold any ostensible and responsible office.

Duljeet, a creature of Roshun-od Dowlah’s, and prime favourite of the late King, carried off, while the King lay dead, money and jewels to the value of one lac of rupees, and concealed them in a vault at Constantia.  His associates, not satisfied with what he gave them, betrayed him.  The money and jewels were discovered and brought back, and he was made to pay another lac of rupees to the treasury as a fine.  Dhunneea, the eldest of the two sisters, was made to disgorge two lacs of rupees.  Many other favourites of the late King were fined in the same way.

The King had, in the case of Ghalib Jung, already described in this Diary, declared his resolution of looking more closely into his accounts in future, and punishing all transgressors in the same way; and Roshun-od Dowlah often expressed to the Resident his apprehensions that his turn to suffer must soon come.  Sobhan Allee Khan had much stronger grounds to fear, since he had made himself utterly detested by the people generally, and had neither friends nor connexions in the royal family or aristocracy of Lucknow.  Under the strong and general impression that the British Government was determined to interpose, and take upon itself the administration of the country, and that the King himself wished the independent sovereignty of Oude to terminate with his reign, they most earnestly desired his early death as their only chance of escape.  The British Government would not, they knew, make them refund any of their ill-gotten wealth without full judicial proof of their peculations, and this proof they knew could never be obtained.  Indeed they were satisfied that our Government, aware of the difficulty of finding such proof, and occupied in forming and working a new system, would not trouble themselves to seek for it; and that they should all be left to reside where they chose, and enjoy freely the fruits of their malversation.

The Resident had kept the instructions of the 15th of December, 1832, from the supreme Government, a profound secret, lest they might lead to intrigue and disturbance, and, above all, to the poisoning of many innocent persons who might be considered to have a claim of right to the throne; and all were surprised and confounded when it was announced that the paramount power had already decided in favour of Nuseer-od Dowlah, whose claims had never been thought of by the people, or apprehended by the ministers.  The instant they heard this decision, they dreaded the scrutiny of the sagacious and parsimonious old man, and the enmity of the favourites by whom he had been surrounded in private life.  These men, whom they had, in their pride and power, despised and insulted, would now have their revenge; and they wished for the success of the old woman and the boy, from whom they might have a better chance of escape, till they could get their wealth and their families out of the country.