adual withdrawal of British troops, from aiding in the collection
of revenue and the suppression of rebellion and disorder, and by the
deterioration in the character of the Oude troops raised to supply
their places, the tallookdars became stronger and stronger. They
withheld more and more of the revenue due to Government, and expended
the money in building forts and strongholds, casting or purchasing
cannon, and maintaining large armed bands of followers. All that they
withheld from the public treasury was laid out in providing the means
for resisting the officers of Government; and, in time, it became a
point of honour to pay nothing to the sovereign without first
fighting with his officers.

Hadee Allee Khan's successors continued the system of transferring
khalsa lands to tallookdars, as the cheapest and most effectual mode
of collecting the revenue for their brief period of authority. The
tallookdars, whose estates were augmented by such transfers, in the
Gonda Bahraetch district, are Ekona, Pyagpoor, Churda, Nanpoora,
Gungwal, Bhinga, Bondee, Ruhooa, and the six divisions of the Gooras,
or Chehdwara estate. The hereditary possessions of the tallookdars,
and, indeed, all the lands in the permanent possession of which they
feel secure, are commonly very well cultivated; but those which they
acquire by fraud, violence, or collusion, are not so, till, by long
suffering and "hope deferred," the old proprietors have been
effectually crushed or driven out of the country. The old proprietors
of the lands so transferred to the tallookdars of the Gonda Baraetch
districts from time to time had, under a series of weak governors,
been so crushed or driven out before 1842, and their lands had, for
the most part, been brought under good tillage.

The King of Oude, in a letter, dated the 31st of August 1823, tells
the Resident, "that the villages and estates of the large refractory
tallookdars are as flourishing and populous as they can possibly be;
and there are many estates among them which yield more than two and
three times the amount at which they have been assessed; and even if
troops should be stationed there, to prevent the cultivation of the
land till the balances are liquidated, the tallookdars immediately
come forward to give battle; and, in spite of everything, cultivate
the lands of their estates, so that their profits from the land are
even greater than those of the Government." This picture is a very
fair one, and