1 APPENDIX^ 137
2 Unthority, and failing heirs of any kind according to Sikh
3 custom and law, the escheat is considered to fall to the pro-
4 tecting state.
5 Until the year 1812, the duties of protection, and the
6 settlement of these mutual disputes, though giving constant
7 employment to Ck)lonel Ochterlony, the British officer ap-
8 pointed superintendent of Sikh aflFairs, produced nothing of
9 sufficient moment to require relation. In that year, how-
10 ever, the disorders in Puteeala consequently upon the Rajah^s
11 imbecility, produced a crisis that called for an exertion of
12 authoritatiye interference. The protected territory was
13 invaded by a public depredator for whose punishment and
14 expulsion the Puteeala Kajah was called upon to furnish a
15 quota of horse. This chief holds territory yielding a
16 revenue of more than thirty lakhs of rupees, yet the whole
17 force he could furnish on the occasion consisted only of two
18 hundred horse of the very worst description, and these
19 arrived so late in the field as to be of no use. Colonel
20 Ochterlony, taking with him the chiefs of Jheend and
21 Naba, proceeded to Puteeala to remonstrate with Muha
22 Raja Saheb Singh upon the evidence of inefficiency afforded
23 by this state of things, and it was endeavoured to persuade
24 him to discard the low favourites who ate up his revenues,
25 and prevented those better disposed from carrying on any
26 consistent system of government, and from introducing the
27 desired improvements into the administration. The attempt
28 to procure a change of ministers by persuasion failed, but
29 the Rajah made many professions of a determination to
30 exert himself to effect the desired reforms. Being left again
31 to himself his conduct became so violent and irregular, as
32 to betray s3anptoms of an aberration of reason, and the
33 colonel was compelled to proceed again to his capital, in
34 order to allow his outraged subjects and dependants to put
35 things on a better footing, and to prevent the Rajah*s re-
36 moval from power from producing convulsions, or a breach
37 of the general tranquillity. Saheb Singh was now deposed,
38 and placed under limited restraint. Askoor Ranee, his wife,