' The oppressed people
appealed to the British functionaries, who remonstrated with the
minister, and the minister punished the people for appealing to the
British functionaries. The Shah was free to confer grants of land on his
creatures, but when the holders resisted, he was unable to enforce his
will since he was not allowed to employ soldiers; and the odium of the
forcible confiscation ultimately fell on Macnaghten, who alone had the
ordering of expeditions, and who could not see the Shah belittled by
non-fulfilment of his requisitions.
Justice sold by venal judges, oppression and corruption rampant in every
department of internal administration, it was no wonder that nobles and
people alike resented the inflictions under whose sting they writhed.
They were accustomed to a certain amount of oppression; Dost Mahomed had
chastised them with whips, but Shah Soojah, whom the English had brought,
was chastising them with scorpions. And they felt his yoke the more
bitterly because, with the shrewd acuteness of the race, they recognised
the really servile condition of this new king. They fretted, too, under
the sharp bit of the British political agents who were strewn about the
country, in the execution of a miserable and futile policy, and whose
lives, in a few instances, did not maintain the good name of their
country.
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