“he was adjudged to have stretched his feet out of the paling of the faith and religion, and to have displayed the standard of heresy, for which crime he might be punished with death; some even voted that it was meritorious to put him to death.” This answer having been re-examined by those scrupulously religious doctors, was confirmed by their signatures and seals; and the unfortunate Prince was made an example of, to terrify the pretenders to the Crown. This event happened in the month of Zilhidj, that month of rejoicing for the Musulman people, and in the year 1069, of the Hedjrah*. His body that had been alive but a few days ago, was now seen lifeless, stretched upon an elephant, and carried in procession, through the same streets and markets along which the Prince had been full of life but a few days ago; after which, it was inhumed in the monument of his glorious ancestor, Soltan H8moy8n. This execution was followed by one less affecting, but no less cruel. There was a Fakir named Shah-sermend*, whose only crime was to have deeply felt Dara-shecoh’s misfortunes, and to have expressed a warm attach­ment for his person; even so inoffensive a man fell under the animadversion of the ecclesiastical doctors, who, to gain the reign­ing Prince’s favour, never fail to give precisely such an answer as is expected from them. Those Pagan doctors sentenced him to death; and other men as Pagan as the doctors, put the sentence in execution. His body was carried to the Cathedral of Shah-djehan-abad, by a multitude of people who buried it in a corner of the yard.

Such people were punished with death, as a matter of course; but the Commanders and Collectors of Aoreng-zib’s own appoint­ing, were, meanwhile, suffered to prey without controul upon the vitals of the people; and the Zemindars, those miscreants so often punished by the late Emperors for their extortions upon travellers and merchants, and for their setting up again on the highways exactions abolished and condemned longwhile ago, were suffered to pass unnoticed. Nor did any of those religious doctors adjudge to death any one of those eternal oppressors of mankind, were it but to make an example that might repress and deter others of a similar stamp; nor did that religious Emperor, that Champion of the faith*, think so much as once of affording his people so necessary a piece of justice, or of throwing off his shoulders that load of curses and execrations which so many oppressed and ruined famlies were accumulating upon him. All these events are mentioned at length in the memoris left us by Hashem-aali-qhan-qhafi*, the historian, who had been for a length of years in Aoreng-zib’s Court, and had enjoyed employs and offices of consequence in his service, had lived with him as a friend, and had been present and witness to all the transactions he records—transactions which although mentioned with all the delicacy and precaution required by those times, nevertheless strongly delineate the real character of that hypocrite. It is from those memoris I am extracting what I say; and he is my voucher and evidence. He reports expressly, that a number of duties and tolls long ago abolished by the late Emperors, and no more borne upon the books, were nevertheless set up again, and with impunity levied by his own Collectors and Fodjdars, against whose exactions shoals of oppressed people repaired in bodies to Court, and exposed their grievances in his presence with a great deal of vociferation; but this, instead of producing some supplice, or some severe example that might deter others, was answered only by threaten­ing letters, and by orders to inquire into the allegations, as if scrupulously to conform himself to the precepts of the law, with orders that inquiry should always precede punition. A few of them were punished by a diminution of military grade, or by dismission; but it was only until they might be reinstated again at the recommendation of their protectors and associates. The extortions and violences of the Zemindars upon travellers, mer­chants and other inoffensive people, rose to such a height in that reign, that whole caravans of people that came from visiting the house of God*, were set upon in their journey home­ward, and slaughtered; and consorts and daughters of Musul­men were carried away by Gentoo pagans as so much fair booty; nor is there mentioning with decency the enormities committed by those miscreants, who acted everywhere with as much authority as if they had been so many officers appointed by Government. But the latter were not less forward than them! Those men who are stationed from the Port of Surat up to the gates of the Capital, on purpose to protect travellers, and especially that particular sort of travellers, availed themselves of their stations to come in for a share of the booty; and after having detained those poor people two or three days together, they despoiled them of the very clothes upon their backs, and dismissed them naked, on finding that nothing else was to be had from them. The above historian relates that he had seen numbers of such people, who after having visited the house of God, in Hedjaz, and the holy places in Irac, were returning to their homes, when they met with the most crying violences from those very guards stationed for their protection. Some being despoiled of their very clothes, were perishing with heat or cold*, and some were expiring of their wounds in the neighbouring fields; nor was there a sympathising soul through­out the whole Court to listen to their groans, or to administer them relief; none to hear their sobs, but God almighty; none at all; and when at last these violences and enormities came to be mentioned at Court, there was not a Doctor, not a Mufti, to answer, that to commit a small evil for the attainment of a mighty good, was lawful and expedient; none, to adjudge to a condign supplice a few at least of those merciless oppressors, as an example and warning to others. No one thought of asking, and no one of resolving the question, Whether some drops of guilty blood were not to be shed in retaliation for so much innocent blood that had run by torrents. All these were matters of small moment, forsooth, and such as admitted delay and deliberation; but to put to death and imprison his brothers, to confine their consorts and children, to keep for years together his own father in a grievous confinement—all these were matters that required the utmost dispatch, and admitted of no deliber­ation, and no delay; for adjudging all these to instant death, the religious Emperor, that Champion of the law, had always at his elbows and in his pay, plenty of doctors and plenty of men skilled in the art of expounding the law. To save appearances, however, and to acquire a character for sanctity and submission to the law, he raised the power of the ecclesiastics to the utmost height, and meanwhile made it a point to abstain from the most lawful amusements.

There were at all times in the Imperial pay a number of comedians and other imitators and satirists of human actions. These he continued in his service, and even increased their salaries, but he forbade their singing and dancing; and at the same time he exiled the Poets and Astrologers from his Court. And whereas the accounts of the pay and receipts of the apanage holders were hitherto kept by solar months, according to the course pointed out by the Yonani (Yonian) Calendar*, he consented that the above method should continue in the above particular part, but forbade it in any other part of the public Registers, ordering that they should be kept by lunar months according to the Musselman system. He abstained likewise from prying into futurity according to the rules of the Yonian system, and was so little superstitious on those articles that the Tuesday and Thursday, those days generally held ominous by all the world, he set apart for his days of going on a progress, or for setting out on an expedition. He now commenced abstaining from jewels or any rich stuff, rejected any other colour than the white* in his own apparel, and he forbade any one of his Grandees to be admitted in his presence, that should wear either rich stuffs, jewels, or gaudy colours; so that simplicity became now the etiquette of the Court. These alterations, which deprived an infinity of families of their bread, were taken to task by the singers and farcers, who having put a richly clothed figure of clay in a coffin, carried it in procession throughout the principal streets, whilst some other took care to throw quantities of dirt at it as it went by; and all this under the very windows of the apartment where they knew the Emperor to be actually sitting. On his asking what was meant by such a shew, he was answered, that singing and rejoicing being dead, the comedians and singers* were carrying the corpse to the grave. “And so they may,” replied he, “but let them take care, lest, in contrariety to the law of God, the dead should seem to move in his grave, or pretend to speak or sing.” There is in the Capital a standing custom transmitted down from the ancient Emperors of Delhi, and to which all their successors had religiously conformed; namely, that of shewing themselves every day at a certain hour to their subjects from the Octagon Tower, on the water side, where thousands and ten thousands of both Mussulman and Gentoos came to enjoy the sight of their Princes, but of Gentoos especially, many of whom make it a religious duty never to sit down to their meal unless they have seen the reigning Prince first. These Gentoos are called Dursunnees*, and this practice had become a very respectable tenet amongst them. This custom he abolished, disobliging, hereby, to no pur­pose at all, an infinity of loyal subjects. Suppose it to have been an absurd custom in the Gentoos, still it did him no harm. It was a ridiculous tenet of theirs, and an absurd one. Be it so; but what harm was there in letting it remain amongst so many other absurd tenets and ridiculous practices of theirs? At any rate, it was an innocent one.