Departure from Lucknow—Gholam Hazrut—Attack on the late Prime Minister, Ameen-od-Dowla—A similar attack on the sons of a former Prime Minister, Agar Meer—Gunga Sing and Kulunder Buksh—Gorbuksh Sing, of Bhitolee—Gonda Bahraetch district—Rughbur Sing—Prethee Put, of Paska—King of Oude and King of the Fairies—Surafraz mahal.
December 1, 1849.—I left Lucknow to proceed on a tour through Oude, to see the state of the country and the condition of the people. My wish to do so I communicated to Government, on the 29th of March last, and its sanction was conveyed to me, in a letter from the Secretary, dated the 7th of April. On the 16th of November I reported to Government my intention to proceed, under this sanction, on the 1st of December, and on the 19th I sent the same intimation to the King. On the 28th, as soon as the ceremonies of the Mohurrum terminated, His Majesty expressed a wish to see me on the following day; and on the 29th I went at 9 A.M., accompanied by Captain Bird, the first Assistant, and Lieutenant Weston, the Superintendant of the Frontier Police, and took leave of the King, with mutual expression of good-will. The minister, Alee Nakee Khan, was present. On the 30th I made over charge of the Treasury to Captain Bird, who has the charge of the department of the Sipahees' Petitions and the Fyzabad Guaranteed Pensions; and, taking with me all the office establishments not required in these three departments, proceeded, under the usual salute, to Chenahut, eight miles.*
[* My escort consisted, of two companies of sipahees, from the 10th Regiment Native Infantry, and my party of Captain Hardwick, lieutenant Weston, and Lieutenant and Mrs. Willows and my wife and children, with occasional visitors from Lucknow and elsewhere.]
The Minister, Dewan and Deputy Minister, Ghoolam Ruza, came out the first stage with me, and our friend Moonuwur-od Dowla, drove out to see us in the evening.
December 2, 1849.—We proceeded to Nawabgunge, the minister riding out with me, for some miles, to take leave, as I sat in my tonjohn. At sunrise I ventured, for the first time since I broke my left thigh-bone on the 4th April, to mount an elephant, the better to see the country. The land, on both sides of the road, well cultivated, and studded with groves of mango and other trees, and very fertile.
The two purgunnas of Nawabgunge and Sidhore are under the charge of Aga Ahmud, the Amil, who has under him two naibs or deputies, Ghoolam Abbas and Mahummud Ameer. All three are obliged to connive at the iniquities of a Landholder, Ghoolam Huzrut, who resides on his small estate of Jhareeapoora, which he is augmenting, in a manner too common in Oude, by seizing on the estates of his weaker neighbours. He wanted to increase the number of his followers, and on the 10th of November 1849, he sent some men to aid the prisoners in the great jail at Lucknow to break out. Five of them were killed in the attempt, seven were wounded, and twenty-five were retaken, but forty-five escaped, and among them Fuzl Allee, one of the four assassins, who, in April 1847, cut down the late minister, Ameen-od Dowla, in the midst of his followers, in one of the principal streets of Lucknow, through which the road, leading from the city to Cawnpore, now passes. One of the four, Tuffuzzul Hoseyn, was killed in attempting to escape on the 8th August 1849, and one, Alee Mahomed, was killed in this last attempt. The third, Fuzl Allee, with some of the most atrocious and desperate of his companions, is now with this Ghoolam Huzrut, disturbing the peace of the country. The leader in this attempt was Ghoolam Hyder Khan, who is still in jail at Lucknow.
On my remarking to the King's wakeel that these ruffians had all high-sounding names, he said, "They are really all men of high lineage; and men of that class, who become ruffians, are always sure to be of the worst description." "As horses of the best blood, when they do become vicious, are the most incorrigible, I suppose?" "Nothing can be more true, sir," rejoined the wakeel. An account of the attack made by the above-named ruffians on the minister, may be here given as both interesting and instructive, or at least as illustrative of the state of society and government in Oude.
At five in the morning of the 8th of April 1847, the minister, Ameen-od Dowlah, left his house in a buggy to visit the King. Of his armed attendants he had only three or four with him. He had not gone far when four armed assassins placed themselves in front of his buggy and ordered him to stop. One of them, Tuffuzzul Hoseyn, seized the horse; by the bridle, and told the minister, that he must give him the arrears of pay due before he could go on. The other three, Fuzl Allee, Allee Mahomed, and Hyder Khan, came up and stood on the right side of the buggy. One of the minister's servants, named Hollas, tried to prevent their coming near, but was fired upon by Allee Mahomed. He missed him, but Fuzl Allee discharged his blunderbuss at him, and he fell; but in falling, he wounded Hyder Khan slightly with his sword. Hyder Khan then threw away his fire-arms and sprang into the buggy with his naked dagger in his right hand and the minister in his left. The minister seized him round the waist, forced him back out of the buggy on the left, and fell upon him. Tuffuzzul Hoseyn then quitted his hold of the horse and rushed to his comrade's assistance, but the minister still holding Hyder Khan in his right hand, seized Tuffuzzul Hoseyn with his left. Syud Aman Allee, another personal servant of the minister, was cut down by Fuzl Allee, in attempting to aid his master, and a third personal servant, Shah Meer, was severely wounded by Allee Mahomed, and stood at a distance of twenty paces, calling for help. Fuzl Allee now made two cuts with his sword on the right shoulder and arm of the minister, below the elbow, and he quitted his hold on the two assassins and fell. The four assassins now grasped their victim, and told him that they would do him no farther harm if no rescue were attempted. As they saw the rest of the minister's armed attendants and a crowd approach, Fuzl Allee and Hyder Khan, with their blunderbusses loaded and cocked, stood one at each end of an open space of about sixty yards, and threatened to shoot the first man who should venture to approach nearer. The crowd and attendants of the minister were kept back, and no one ventured to enter this space, in the centre of which the minister lay, grasped by Tuffuzzul Hoseyn and Allee Mahomed, who held their naked daggers at his breast. The minister called out to his attendants and the crowd to keep back. He was then allowed to rise and walk to a small raised terrace on the side of the street, where he lay down on his back, being unable any longer to sit or stand from the loss of blood. Tuffuzzul Hoseyn and Allee Mahomed knelt over him, holding the points of their daggers at his breast, and swearing that they would plunge them to his heart if he attempted to move, or any one presumed to enter the open space to rescue him. Hollas and Syud Aman Allee lay bleeding at the spot where they fell. Hollas died that day, and Syud Aman Allee a few days after, of lock-jaw.
As soon as the attack on the minister was made, information of it was sent off to the Resident, Colonel Richmond, who wrote to request the Brigadier Commanding the Troops in Oude, to send him, as soon as possible, a regiment of infantry with two guns, from the Cantonments, which are three miles and a-half distant from the Residency, on the opposite side from the scene of the attack, to prevent any tumult that the loose characters of the city might attempt to raise on the occasion, and repaired himself to the spot attended by the Assistant, Captain Bird, and a small guard of sipahees. They reached the open spot, in the centre of which the minister lay, about a quarter of an hour after he fell. He found the street, in which the attack took place, crowded with people up to the place where the two sentries, Fuzl Allee and Hyder Khan, stood at each end of the open space, in the centre of which the minister lay, with the daggers of the two other assassins pressing upon his breast. On reaching one end of the open space, the Resident directed Captain Bird to advance to the spot where the minister lay. The assassin who guarded that end at first threatened to shoot him, but no sooner recognized him than he let him pass on unattended. He asked the two men, who knelt over the minister, what they meant by this assault. They told him, that good men were no longer employed in the King's service, and that they were, in consequence, without the means of subsistence; and had been compelled to resort to this mode of obtaining them; that they required fifty thousand rupees from the minister, with a written assurance from the British Resident, that they should be escorted in safety across the Ganges into the British territory with this sum.
The Resident peremptorily refused to enter into any written agreement with them, and told them, through the Assistant, that if they presumed to put the minister to death, or to offer him any further violence, they should be all four immediately shot down and cut to pieces; but, if they did him no further harm, their lives should, be spared; and, to prevent their being killed as soon as they quitted their hold, that he would take them all with him to the Residency, and neither imprison them himself, nor have them made over as prisoners to the Oude Government; but that he declined being a party to any arrangement that the minister might wish to make of paying money for his life.