ABSTRACT
The growth of administration there was conditioned, first by the fact that unsettled areas where government had to be based frankly on military strength and where the administrator had to be prepared to deal with incipient rebellion naturally required a more rough-and-ready kind of rule. As the Mughal power began to decline, the administrative system rapidly broke down and little that was good was left to the East India Company to inherit. The old traditions of Muslim imperial rule had broken down and the East India Company had to start from scratch. In 1704 that force consisted of an Indian superintendent, forty-five constables, but crime grew apace with the increase in population and in 1706 the number of watchmen had to be increased to thirty-one. The small English settlement relied for its protection on a garrison of three officers and about one hundred and fifty men, a considerable proportion of whom were employed in convoying the Company’s ‘investment’ to Patna.
