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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
is the deliberate opinion of such competent judges as Colonel Meadows 
Taylor, that notwithstanding its great weight of 40 tons, it might now' be 
taken with comparative ease to Sholapore and thence to Bombay, we need 
not despair of seeing it one day beside its more ancient brother from the 
Dardanelles, in the Museum of Artillery. 
The Dhool Dhanee or great gun of Agra, cast in 1628, has ceased to 
exist. It was broken up in 1882 by order of Lord William Bentinck, whose 
reasons for this measure are fully given in a despatch which by the kindness 
of the Bight Hon. the Secretary of State for India, I have been allowed to 
extract from the archives of that Department. 
Extract, Fort William Military Consultationsy dated 16^ April 1832. 
Military Department. 
MINUTE, GOVERNOR-GENERAL. 
Amongst other objects of curiosity at Agra is, what is called the “ great gun.” 
The epithet is certainly well applied, for it denotes the only remarkable quality of 
this enormous mass of metal, which as a piece of ordnance is ugly, disproportionate, 
and worthless. Had it been otherwise, had any elegance of form been obvious to 
the eye, the inventive genius of the East would have given it a place in some 
eventful passage of Hindoo or Mahomedan history. As it is this gun is not 
coupled with a single incident to render it an object of the slightest regard to any 
class of persons. Tradition seems not even to have fabled, by whom, when, or 
where it was fabricated. 
Nor is it in any sense considered a trophy of British prowess. It fell among 
other artillery into the hands of Lord Lake at the capture of the fortress, but was 
not in any way interwoven with the occurrences of the siege; it proved valuable 
however to the captors ; the Prize Committee having appraised it, in consequence 
of the supposed costliness of the metal, at I have heard 70,000 rupees, which sum 
was paid to them by Government. A few years after its capture, a clumsy attempt 
was made to send it down to Calcutta, which attempt either failing, or being 
abandoned on the score of expense, the gun now lies useless and neglected near a 
petty Ghaut of the Jumna under an angle of the Port. 
Whether or not this gun stands upon the public returns as stock, I do hot 
know : probably a record of the payment to the captors of its estimated value, and 
of the unsuccessful attempt to remove it from Agra will be forthcoming in some 
public office. Eor my purpose, however, the absence of any notice of it on 
the records is immaterial, if I am right in assuming that the gun, as it lies on the 
bank of the river, is the property of government. If it be so, and if I have 
correctly described it as being remarkable only for its bulk, the value of its metal, 
and the failure of the attempt to remove it, it cannot be worth preserving in its 
present shape; as it is to be presumed also from what I have said, that no feelings 
or prejudice will be offended by its being broken up, I really think that an article 
so valuable, as it is supposed to be, owing to the quantity and quality of the 
metal, of which it is composed, should not be allowed longer to remain useless at 
a petty Ghaut. 
I propose therefore that the gun be offered for sale at Agra in order to its being 
melted down, it will not probably bring nearly the prize valuation amount, but if 
it fetches half that sum, it will be admitted that so much money laid out in the 
