This was written in A.D. 1821, when Maharao Kishor Singh [died 1828] succeeded. Footnote 10.6.3: [Formerly capital of Dhrāngadhra State in Kāthiāwār (_IGI_, xiii. 13).] Footnote 10.6.4: Māmā is ‘maternal uncle’; Kākā, ‘paternal uncle.’ Footnote 10.6.5: Not Rāna, which he puts upon his seal. Footnote 10.6.6: See Vol. I. p. 500. Footnote 10.6.7: [About 60 miles S. of Kotah city.] Footnote 10.6.8: The reader is requested to refer to p. 1483, for evidence of the loyalty and heroism of Sawant Hara, the founder of this clan. Footnote 10.6.9: [About 70 miles E. of Kotah city.] Footnote 10.6.10: [Brajvilās, the ‘garden of enjoyment,’ like that in which Krishna sported with the Gopis in the land of Braj or Mathura.] Footnote 10.6.11: [About 40 miles S.E. of Kotah city.] Footnote 10.6.12: Vol. I. p. 516. Footnote 10.6.13: This was written at Kotah, in S. 1876 (A.D. 1820). Footnote 10.6.14: [Kesavarāē, Krishna.] ----- CHAPTER 7 =Legislation of Zālim Singh.=—We are now to examine the Protector in another point of view, as the legislator and manager of the State whose concerns he was thus determined to rule. For a series of years Kotah was but the wet-nurse to the child of his ambition, a design upon Mewar [529], which engulfed as in a vortex all that oppression could extort from the industry of the people confided to his charge. From this first acquaintance with the court of the Rana, in S. 1827 to the year 1856, he never relinquished the hope of extending the same measure of authority over that State which he exerted in his own. To the prosecution of this policy Haraoti was sacrificed, and the cultivator lowered to the condition of a serf. In the year 1840, oppression was at its height; the impoverished ryot, no longer able to pay the extra calls upon his industry, his cattle and the implements of his labour distrained, was reduced to despair. Many died from distress; some fled, but where could they find refuge in the chaos around them? The greater part were compelled to plough for hire, with the cattle and implements once their own, the very fields, their freehold, which had been torn from them. From this system of universal impoverishment, displayed at length in unthatched villages and untilled lands, the regent was compelled to become farmer-general of Kotah. Fortunately for his subjects, and for his own reputation, his sense of gratitude and friendship for the family of Inglia—whose head, Bala Rao, was then a prisoner in Mewar—involved him, in the attempt to obtain his release, in personal conflict with the Rana, and he was compelled to abandon for ever that long-cherished object of his ambition. It was then he perceived he had sacrificed the welfare of all classes to a phantom, and his vigorous understanding suggested a remedy, which was instantly adopted.