[No. 4, 
2 GO W. Ir vine —The JBanyash Nawabs of Farrukhabad. 
those of its competitors. At the death of Muhammad Khan in 1743, no 
one would have foretold that his successors would so soon be distanced in 
the race for power. The rashness of one successor and the weak unam¬ 
bitious nature of another, aided by the exposed position of their country, 
placed in the highway of all hostile forces from east or west or south, soon 
reduced Farrukhabad to comparative insignificance. Still, it is impossible 
to deny that the Bangash Nawabs have received but scant justice at the 
band of the geheral historian. Nowhere has their history been told in any 
connected form, and many of the events in which they played a prominent 
part have been pa'ssed over or incorrectly narrated. To remedy, so far as 
possible, this defect, is the object of this paper. It is, I believe, the first 
attempt in English to tell, from the local point of view, the story of the 
Nawabs of Farrukhabad. 
Account of the sources from which this history is derived. 
Since many of the books I have used are MSS. not known beyond the 
limits of the district, it is desirable to begin with some account of them 
and their authors. 
The oldest and most valuable of these is a collection of letters from 
and to Muhammad Khan, Ghazanfar Jang, made in 1159 H. (Jan. 1746— 
Jan. 1747) by Munshi Sahib Itae under the name of Khujistah Kalam , 
which denotes the date. There are 206 letters from, and 89 to Muhammad 
Khan. His correspondents included all the great men of that time, but 
letters are most numerous to the Emperor, to the Wazir Kamr-ud-din Khan, 
to Nizam-ul Mulk, to Khan Daurati Khan, Amir-ul Uinra, and to Koslian- 
ud-daula. The letters belong mostly to the period from 1140 H. to 1156 
FI. The MS. measures 10 in. x 6| in. and contains 251 leaves of 
fifteen lines to a page, but there are two or three leaves wanting at the 
end. The book, which was obtained from the heir of Sahib Iiae’s great- 
grandson Bhawani Parshad, lay in a heap of other papers, which had been 
reduced to dust by damp and insects, in a long-disused room. No other 
copy appears to be in existence. 
The family history of Sahib Itae, so far it can be pieced together from 
the fragments left at the end of his book, is as follows : His grandfather, 
Manohar Das, filled the office of peshkar of Bahat, Sahind and Antri with 
other districts of Sarkar Gwaliar. He lived in Gwaliar where he had a 
masonry house. After his death, his son Dwarka Das went to Shahjahan- 
abad in search of employment, and lived in the Paharganj ward. Through 
his friend Lala Gaj Singh, peshkar of the Khdlsa Shanfa, he was ap¬ 
pointed to some office. He left two sons Dal Chand and Sahib liae. The 
former was letter-copier and keeper of private accounts to Nawab Sa’dat 
Khan. Sahib Fiae was educated by his brother, and in the time of Far- 
