This contest would, however, have been again renewed, and the same desolating disorders would have again prevailed, could Rughbur Sing's agents at the capital, by a judicious distribution of the money at their disposal, have induced the Court to restore him to the government of these or any other districts in Oude.
On the 23rd of July 1849, Captain Orr sent in his report, giving a brief outline of such of the atrocities committed by Rughbur Sing and his agents in these districts as he was able, during his tour, to establish upon unquestionable evidence; but they made but a small portion of the whole, as the people in general still apprehended that he would be restored to power by Court favour, and wreak his vengeance upon all who presumed to give evidence against him; while many of the most respectable families in the districts were ashamed to place on record the suffering and dishonour inflicted on their female members; and still more had been reduced by them to utter destitution, and driven in despair into other districts.

To use his own words--"The once flourishing districts of Gonda and Bahraetch, so noted for fertility and beauty, are now, for the greater part, uncultivated; villages completely deserted in the midst of lands devoid of all tillage everywhere meet the eye; and from Fyzabad to Bahraetch I passed through these districts, a distance of eighty miles, over plains which had been fertile and well cultivated, till Rughbur Sing got charge, but now lay entirely waste, a scene for two years of great misery ending in desolation." Rajah Hurdut Sahae, the proprietor of the Bondee estate, was the head of one of the oldest Rajpoot families in Oude.

Having placed the most notorious knaves in the country as revenue collectors over all the subdivisions of his two districts, Rajah Rughbur Sing, in 1846, demanded from Hurdut Sahae an increase of five thousand rupees upon the assessment of the preceding year.

The Rajah pleaded the badness of preceding seasons, and consequent poverty of his tenants and cultivators; but at last he consented to pay the increase, and on solemn pledges of personal security he collected all his tenants, to take upon themselves the responsibility of making good this demand.
To this they all agreed; but they had no sooner done so, than Rughbur Sing's agent, Prag Pursaud, demanded a gratuity of seven thousand rupees for himself, over and above the increase of five thousand upon the demand of the preceding year.

The Rajah would not agree to pay the seven thousand, but went off to request some capitalists to furnish securities for the punctual payment of the rent.
The agent sent off secretly to Rughbur Sing to say, that unless he came at the head of his forces he saw no chance of getting the revenues from the Rajah or his tenants, who were all assembled and might be secured if he could contrive to surprise them.