1904.] 
189 
G. N. Dutt —History of the Hutwa Ttaj. 
arrest of Fateh Shahi and not to collect revenue for the N awab, at once 
returned to Ba.ragaon with his detachment in disgust. He, however, 
found that rebel’s position so strong that he wrote to the Provincial 
Council of Patna that to ensure success, he must have a greater force 
than that which he then commanded, and also a gun. The season of the 
year was then too far advanced to despatch a military force for a fresh 
attempt to seize Fateh Shahi; but Lieutenant Hardinge was instructed 
to surprise him if possible, and to issue a proclamation offering a re¬ 
ward of Its. 10,000 to any person who should either apprehend him or 
point out the place of his residence. In the meantime the Nawab of 
Oudh was written to, to farm out the portion of Husainpur zemindary 
comprised in his dominions on a fair and equitable adjustment of rent 
to the farmer with whom the rest of the zemindary situated in the 
'British Territory had been settled ; and Captain Coxe, then commanding 
a battalion at Bagaha, was instructed to hold himself ready to march 
with his battalion to Gorakhpur and to use his utmost endeavours in 
conjunction with the Nawab’s force, both to apprehend Fateh Shahi and 
to put the farmer in possession of the Husainpur zemindary. 
Nothing, however, appears to have been done, as the English Gov¬ 
ernment, soon after, was embarassed on all sides by the rebellion of 
Raja Chait Singh of Benares (16tli August, 1781), which spread a 
regular conflagration in Behar, or more strictly, in the countries between 
Allahabad to Mongbyr. In Behar there was a regular concentration 
of troops to harass the English. The revolt of Chait Singh burst sud¬ 
denly on the officials of Behar, and Mr. Ross, the Revenue Chief at the 
head of the Executive Administration of Patna, wrote to the Council 
at Calcutta on the 20th August, 1781, that “ since the revolt of Raja 
Chait Singh on the 16th instant, every communication by Dak had been 
cut off from thence to Benares, and so well had he (Chait Singh) con¬ 
certed measures that Mr. Ross could obtain no intelligence whatever 
from that quarter.” On the 29tli August, Mr. Grome, the Collector of 
Saran, wrote to inform Mr. Ross that Riza Kuli Khan the amil of 
Sasseram was at that time with Raja Chait Singh, and many of the in¬ 
habitants of that district, particularly the Ujain Rajputs, were sincere¬ 
ly attached to him, and that one Bunyad Singh, who belonged to Chaitn- 
pore and afterwards became a Mahomedan, was with 150 horses and 500 
armed Sepoys on his way to Ramnagar to join Riza Kuli Khan. 
A letter dated the 6th October, 1781, from Mr. Ross to Major Hardy, 
Commanding the Patna Militia, shows that Fateh Shahi was still giv¬ 
ing trouble in Saran at that period with several zemindars and others 
in the jurisdiction of the Revenue Chief of Patna, and had armed and 
clothed his dependants in the military accoutrements of the Company; 
