OR CUTTACK. 209 



Masalih ad Din laboured honestly and zealously to discharge the obli- 

 gations into which he had entered, and paid the four lacs for two years to 

 the Nagpore agent, but at the end of that period he solicited permission 

 to relinquish the government, stating forcibly his inability any longer to 

 fulfil his engagements, owing to the declining resources of the country, and 

 still more to the turbulent and unmanageable character of the Khandaits, 

 or Military Zemindars of Orissa, who could be kept in no sort of subjecti- 

 on without the constant employment of a very large army in the field, the 

 expense of maintaining which, engrossed the whole revenues. His state- 

 ments so fully convinced his master of the impolicy of any longer retaining 

 Cuttack, burthened with the condition of paying four lacs annually from its 

 revenues, that a proposal was tendered to the Raja of Nagpore, to undertake 

 the management of the country through officers of his own appointment, in 

 lieu of the stipulated payment, which being agreed to, the Suba of Cuttack, 

 fell from that date under the sole undisputed government of the Berar 

 Marhattas, A. D. 1755-0, > 



The administration of the Marhattas in Cuttack, was, as in every other 

 part of their foreign conquests, fatal to the welfare of the people and the 

 prosperity of the country, and exhibits a picture of misrule, anarchy, weak- 

 ness, rapacity, and violence combined, which makes one wonder how 

 society can have been kept together under so calamitous a tyranny. All 

 the head offices of the district, as those of Subadar, Dewan, and the Kil- 

 ladarship of fort Barabatti, were openly bought and sold at Nagpore. It 

 frequently happened that appointments were given to two or three per- 

 sons at the same time, and still oftener the individuals in charge refused 

 to retire under various pretexts. The different claimants, assembling their 

 followers, would fight the most obstinate battles, and lay waste the coun- 

 try with their dissensions, before the right to succeed was settled. Press- 

 ed by the urgent irregular demands of the Court of Nagpore for remit- 

 tances, and by the necessity of reimbursing themselves for the ex-pen* 



Li 2 



