1777.—"There is not in any country in the world, of which I have any knowledge, a more pernicious race of vermin in human shape than are the numerous cast of people known in Bengal by the appellation of Sircars; they are educated and trained to deceive."—Price's Tracts, i. 24.
1810.—"The Sircar is a genius whose whole study is to handle money, whether receivable or payable, and who contrives either to confuse accounts, when they are adverse to his view, or to render them most expressively intelligible, when such should suit his purpose."—Williamson, V.M. i. 200.
1822.—"One morning our Sircar, in answer to my having observed that the articles purchased were highly priced, said, 'You are my father and my mother, and I am your poor little child. I have only taken 2 annas in the rupee dustoorie'" ([dustoor]).—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, i. 21-22.
1834.—"'And how the deuce,' asked his companion, 'do you manage to pay for them?' 'Nothing so easy,—I say to my Sirkar: 'Baboo, go pay for that horse 2000 rupees, and it is done, Sir, as quickly as you could dock him.'"—The Baboo and Other Tales, i. 13.
c.—
c. 1590.—"In the fortieth year of his majesty's reign, his dominions consisted of 105 Sircars, subdivided into 2737 kusbahs" ([cusba]), "the revenue of which he settled for ten years at 3 Arribs, 62 [Crore], 97 [Lacks], 55,246 [Dams]" (q.v. 3,62,97,55,246 dāms = about 9 millions sterling).—Ayeen, E.T. by Gladwin, 1800, ii. 1; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 115.]
SIRDAR, s. Hind. from Pers. sardār, and less correctly sirdār, 'leader, a commander, an officer'; a chief, or lord; the head of a set of palankin-bearers, and hence the 'sirdār-bearer,' or elliptically 'the Sirdār,' is in Bengal the style of the valet or body-servant, even when he may have no others under him (see [BEARER]). [Sirdār is now the official title of the Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army; Sirdār Bahādur is an Indian military distinction.]
[c. 1610.—"... a captain of a company, or, as they call it, a Sardare."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 254.
[1675.—"Sardar." See under [SEPOY].]
1808.—"I, with great difficulty, knocked up some of the villagers, who were nearly as much afraid as Christie's Will, at the visit of a Sirdār" (here an officer).—Life of Leyden.