A committee of British officers was assembled at Bhinga on the 11th June, and their proceedings were transmitted to the Resident on the 18th of that month; but the committee, for some reasons stated in the report, did not examine "the grave in which the body of the deceased was said to have been deposited." Though in this committee Ensign Platt stated that he was present when the murder was perpetrated; that he attended the deceased till he died the next night, and performed the funeral ceremonies over the body on the morning of the 8th; still he seemed to narrate the circumstances of the event with some reserve, while there was a good deal of discrepancy in the evidence of the other eye-witnesses, as recorded in the report, seemingly from the dread of compromising Ensign Platt.
The Resident did not, therefore, think that Government would be satisfied with the result of this inquiry; and, on the 20th of June he directed Colonel Patton to reassemble the committee at Bhinga, and require it to hold an inquest on the body, and take the depositions of all the witnesses on oath. On the same day the Resident reported to Government what he had done. The second committee proceeded to Bhinga, and, on the 13th of July, Colonel Patton transmitted its report to the Resident, who submitted it to Government on the 17th of that month. The committee had taken the evidence of the witnesses on oath, and held an inquest on the body; but, in doing so, it had been necessary to dig through the tomb which Mrs. Ravenscroft had, in the interval, caused to be erected over the remains of her husband; and, at the suggestion of Colonel Patton, this tomb was rebuilt and improved at the cost of Government, who were perfectly satisfied with the result.
But in its reply, dated the 31st July, Government very justly remarks, that all the unnecessary trouble which had attended this investigation, as well as the very painful step of having the body disinterred, which the Resident found himself compelled to adopt in obedience to its orders, arose from a want of those obvious precautions in the first instance which ought to have suggested themselves to Colonel Patton. Had he made the requisite inquiries at Secrora, he must have learnt that an English officer belonging to his own regiment, who had been present at the interment, had been wounded when Mr. Ravenscroft was murdered, and, for a time, rendered unfit for duty. The facts since deposed to on oath by Ensign Platt might have been elicited, and his testimony, if necessary, might have been confirmed by the evidence of the widow of the deceased; and had such conclusive evidence been submitted to Government in the first instance, the doubts excited by the extraordinary circumstances of the whole affair would never have existed. When ordered on the inquiry to Bhinga, had Ensign Platt at once declared at Secrora that he could there afford all the information required as to the fact of the murder and interment of the body, the necessity of further inquiry on the spot would have been obviated. He had apparently been deterred from doing this by the apprehension of compromising both himself and his commanding officer. Colonel Patton had no knowledge of Mr. Ravenscroft being at Bhinga, though he had heard a rumour of his being somewhere in the Oude territory; and, in his application for a few days' leave, Ensign Platt made no mention of him or of his intention to visit him. This is stated in a subsequent letter from Colonel Patton to the Resident, dated 27th of August 1823.
The opinion that the Rajah had nothing whatever to do with the murder, and that the gang was secretly hired for the purpose by his eldest son, Surubjeet, has been confirmed by time, and is now universal among the people of these parts. He died soon after of dropsy, and the people believe that the disease was caused by the crime. He left an only son, Krishun Dutt Sing. The Rajah, Seo Sing, survived his eldest son some years; and, on his death, he was succeeded by Krishun Dutt Sing, who now leads precisely the same secluded life that his father led, and leaves the management of the Bhinga estate entirely to his only surviving uncle, Kaleepurkas Sing, the youngest of the two boys who visited Mr. Ravenscroft on the evening of the murder. The other three sons of the old Rajah are dead. The actual perpetrators of the murder were never punished or discovered. Mrs. Ravenscroft afterwards became united in marriage to the Resident at the time, Mr. Mordaunt Ricketts, and still lives. Her child, a boy, was drowned at the Lucknow Residency some time after his mother's marriage with the Resident. He had been shut up by his mother in a bathing-room for some fault; and, looking into a bathing-tub at his image in the water, he lost his balance, fell in, and was drowned. When the servants went to let him out they found him quite dead.
[CHAPTER III.]
Legendary tale of breach of Faith—Kulhuns tribe of Rajpoots—Murder of the Banker, Ramdut Pandee, by the Nazim of Bahraetch—Recrossing the Ghagra river—Sultanpoor district, State of Commandants of troops become sureties for the payment of land revenue—Estate of Muneearpoor and the Lady Sogura—Murder of Hurpaul Sing, Gurgbunsee, of Kupragow—Family of Rajahs Bukhtawar and Dursun Sing—Their bynama Lands—Law of Primogeniture—Its object and effect—Rajah Ghalib Jung—Good effects of protection to Tenantry—Disputes about Boundaries—Our army a safety-valve for Oude—Rapid decay of Landed Aristocracy in our Territories—Local ties in groves, wells, &c.
December 15, 1849.-Wuzeergunge. On the way this morning, we passed Koorassa, which is said once to have been the capital of a formidable Rajah, the head of the Kulhuns tribe of Rajpoots. The villages which we see along the road seem better, and better peopled and provided with cattle. The soil not naturally very fertile, but yields fine returns under good culture, manure, and irrigation. Water everywhere very near the surface. The place is called after the then Nawab Wuzeer, Asuf-od Dowlah, who built a country-seat here with all appurtenances of mosque, courts, dwelling-houses, &c., on the verge of a fine lake, formed in the old bed of the Ghagra river, with tillage and verdure extending down to the water's edge. The garden-wall, which surrounds a large space of ground, well provided with fruit and ornamental trees, is built of burnt bricks, and still entire. The late minister, Ameen-od Dowlah, persuaded his master, Amjad Allee Shah, to give this garden and the lands around, with which it had been endowed, to his moonshee, Baker Allee Khan, who now resides at Fyzabad, and subsists upon the rents which he derives from them, and which are said to be about twelve hundred rupees a-year.
The Bulrampoor Rajah, Ramdut Pandee, the banker, and Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, rode with me this morning. The Rajah of Bulrampoor is an intelligent and pleasing young man. He was a child when Mr. Ravenscroft was killed, but said he had heard, that the Bhinga chief had suffered for the share which he had had in the murder; his body swelled, and he died within a month or two. "If men's bodies swelled for murder, my friend," I said, "we should have no end of swelled bodies in Oude, and among the rest, that of Prethee Put's, of Paska." "Their bodies all swell, sooner, or later," said old Bukhtawar Sing, "when they commit such atrocious crimes, and Prethee Puts will begin to swell when he finds that you are inquiring into his." "I am afraid, my friends, that the propensity to commit them has become inveterate. One man hears that another has obtained lands or wealth by the murder of his father or brother, and does not rest till he has attempted to get the same by the murder of his, for he sees no man punished for such crimes." "It is not all nor many of our clan" (Rajpoots), said the Rajah of Bulrampoor, "that can or will do this: we never unite our sons or daughters in marriage with the family of one who is so stained with crimes. Prethee Put and all who do as he has done, must seek an union with families of inferior caste." I asked him whether the people, in the Tarae forest, were still afraid to point out tigers to sportsmen. "I was lately out with a party after a tiger," he said, "which had killed a cowherd, but his companions refused to point out any trace of him, saying, that their relatives' spirit must be now riding upon his head, to guide him from all danger, and we should have no chance of shooting him. We did shoot him, however," said the Rajah, exultingly, "and they were all, afterwards, very glad of it. The tigers in the Tarae do not often kill men, sir, for they find plenty of deer and cattle to eat."—"Can you tell me, Rajah Sahib," said I, "why it is that among the Arabs, the lion is called 'the father of cultivation,' 'abol hurs, or abo haris.'" "No," replied the Rajah; "it is an odd name for a beast that feeds on nothing but the flesh of deer, cattle, and men." "It is, I suppose, Rajah Sahib," I remarked, "because he feeds upon the deer, which are the greatest enemies of their young crops."
The Rajahs of Toolseepoor and Bulrampoor, and all the merchants and respectable landholders in these parts assure me, that all the large colonies of Bhuduks, or gang robbers by hereditary profession, who had, for so many generations, up to A.D. 1840, been located in the Oude Terae forest, have entirely disappeared under the operation of the "Special Police," of the Thuggee and Dacoitee Department, aided and supported by the Oude Government; and that not one family of them can now be found anywhere in Oude. They have not been driven out as formerly, to return as soon as the temporary pressure ceased, but hunted down and punished, or made to blend with the rest of society in service or at honest labour.