upon an unresponsible power,—­in this also acting without the Council, and by his own usurped authority:  and accordingly the said Resident did declare, in his letter of the 24th of April, 1785, “that the situation of the country was more distressful than when he [the prince of Furruckabad] addressed himself for relief in 1783, and that he was sorry to say that his appointment at Furruckabad was of no use”; that, though the old tribute could not be paid, owing to famine and other causes, it was increased by a new imposition, making the whole equal the entire gross produce of the revenue; that therefore there will not be “anything for the subsistence of the Nabob and family.”  And the uncles of the said Nabob of Furruckabad, the brethren of the late Ahmed Khan, (who had rendered important services to the Company,) and their children, in a petition to the Resident, represented that soon after the succession of Muzuffer Jung “their misery commenced.  The jaghires [lands and estates] on which they subsisted were disallowed.  Our distress is great:  we have neither clothes nor food.  Though we felt hurt at the idea of explaining our situation, yet, could we have found a mode of conveyance, we would have proceeded to Calcutta for redress.  The scarcity of grain this season is an additional misfortune.  With difficulty we support life.  From your presence without the provinces we expect relief.  It is not the custom of the Company to deprive the zemindars and jaghiredars of the means of subsistence.  To your justice we look up.”

This being the situation of the person and family of the Nabob of Furruckabad and his nearest relations, the state of the country and its capital, prevented from all relief by the said Warren Hastings, is described in the following words by the Resident, Willes.

“Almas Ali has taken the purgunnah of Marara at a very inadequate rent, and his aumils have seized many adjacent villages:  the purgunnahs of Cocutmow and Souje are constantly plundered by his people.  The collection of the ghauts near Futtyghur has been seized by the Vizier’s cutwal, and the zemindars in four purgunnahs are so refractory as to have fortified themselves in their gurries, and to refuse all payments of revenue.  This is the state of the purgunnahs. And Furruckabad, which was once the seat of great opulence and trade, is now daily deserted by its inhabitants, its walls mouldering away, without police, without protection, exposed to the depredations of a banditti of two or three hundred robbers, who, night after night, enter it for plunder, murdering all who oppose them.  The ruin that has overtaken this country is not to be wondered at, when it is considered that there has been no state, no stable government, for many years. There has been the Nabob Vizier’s authority, his ministers’, the Residents’ at Lucknow, the sezauwils’, the camp authority, the Nabob Muzuffer Jung’s, and that of twenty duans or advisers:  no authority sufficiently predominant to establish any regulations for the benefit of the country, whilst each authority has been exerted, as opportunity offered, for temporary purposes.