Observations on the Mussulmauns of India | Page 2

to by the authoress.
His son was Mir Hasan 'Ali, the husband of the authoress. The tradition
in Lucknow is that he quarrelled with his father and went to Calcutta,
where he taught Arabic to some British officers and gained a
knowledge of English. We next hear of him in England, when in May
1810 he was appointed assistant to the well-known oriental scholar,
John Shakespear, professor of Hindustani at the Military College,
Addiscombe, from 1807 to 1830, author of a dictionary of Hindustani
and other educational works. Mention is made of two cadets boarding
with Mir Hasan 'Ali, but it does not appear from the records where he
lived. After remaining at the College for six years he resigned his

appointment on the ground of ill-health, with the intention of returning
to India. He must have been an efficient teacher, because, on his
resignation, the East India Company treated him with liberality. He
received a gift of £50 as a reward for his translation of the Gospel of St.
Matthew, and from the Court minutes it appears that on December 17,
1816, it was resolved to grant him 100 guineas to provide his passage
and £100 for equipment. Further, the Bengal Government was
instructed to furnish him on his arrival with means to reach his native
place, and to pay him a pension of Rs. 100 per mensem for the rest of
his life.[1]
A tradition from Lucknow states that he was sent to England on a
secret mission, 'to ask the Home authorities to accept a contract of
Oudh direct from Nasir-ud-din Haidar, who was quite willing to remit
the money of contract direct to England instead of settling the matter
with the British Resident at Lucknow'. It is not clear what this exactly
means. It may be that the King of Oudh, thinking that annexation was
inevitable, may have been inclined to attempt to secure some private
arrangement with the East India Company, under which he would
remain titular sovereign, paying a tribute direct to the authorities in
England, and that he wished to conduct these negotiations without the
knowledge of the Resident at Lucknow. There does not seem to be
independent evidence of this mission of Mir Hasan 'Ali, and we are told
that it was, as might have been expected, unsuccessful.
No mention is made of his wife in the official records, and I have been
unable to trace her family name or the date and place of her marriage.
Mir Hasan 'Ali and his wife sailed for Calcutta, and travelled to
Lucknow via Patna. She tells little of her career in India, save that she
lived there for twelve years, presumably from 1816 to 1828, and that
eleven years of that time were spent in the house of her father-in-law at
Lucknow. In the course of her book she gives only one date, September
18, 1825, when her husband held the post of Tahsildar, or sub-collector
of revenue, at Kanauj in the British district of Farrukhabad. No records
bearing on his career as a British official are forthcoming. Another
Lucknow tradition states that on his arrival at the Court of Oudh from
England he was, on the recommendation of the Resident, appointed to a
post in the King's service on a salary of Rs. 300 per annum.
Subsequently he fell into disgrace and was obliged to retire to

Farrukhabad with the court eunuch, Nawab Mu'tamad-ud-daula, Agha
Mir.
With the restoration of Agha Mir to power, Hasan 'Ali returned to
Lucknow, and was granted a life pension of Rs. 100 per mensem for his
services as Darogha at the Residency, and in consideration of his
negotiations between the King and the British Government or the East
India Company.
From the information collected at Lucknow it appears that he was
known as Mir Londoni, 'the London gentleman', and that he was
appointed Safir, or Attaché, at the court of King Ghazi-ud-din Haidar,
who conferred upon him the title of Maslaha-ud-daula, 'Counsellor of
State'. By another account he held the post of Mir Munshi, head native
clerk or secretary to the British Resident.
One of the most influential personages in the court of Oudh during this
period was that stormy petrel of politics, Nawab Hakim Mehndi. He
had been the right-hand man of the Nawab Sa'adat Ali, and on the
accession of his son Ghazi-ud-din Haidar in 1814 he was dismissed on
the ground that he had incited the King to protest against interference in
Oudh affairs by the Resident, Colonel Baillie. The King at the last
moment became frightened at the prospect of an open rupture with the
Resident. Nawab Hakim Mehndi was deprived of all his public offices
and of much of his property, and he was imprisoned for a time. On his
release he retired into