he had Regall authoritie to take what he list, which was esteemed at five thousand horse, the pay of every one at two hundred Rupias by the yeare, whereof he kept fifteene hundred, and was allowed the Surplusse as dead pay: besides the King gave him a Pension of one thousand Rupias a day, and some smaller governments. Yet he assured me there were divers had double his entertainment, and about twenty equall." This being translated means that the governor of Patna was an officer, or mansabdar, of the rank of five thousand horsemen, nominally, but was expected to maintain a force of only fifteen hundred, which cost him three hundred thousand rupees a year. Nevertheless, he drew from the imperial treasury at the rate of five thousand horse, or one million rupees, thus gaining seven hundred thousand profit, besides whatever he could sweat out of the taxes of the province which was farmed out to him, except for the one million one hundred thousand rupees which he had to pay as rent to the treasury. In other words, this official drew a fixed salary of nearly £80,000 a year, besides what he could make out of the taxes, and without reckoning the pension of one thousand rupees a day, which is probably a confused repetition of the three hundred thousand allowed for the troops. It was at any rate four times the pay of a British viceroy of India.
Roe had no easy time, what with the intrigues of the court, the vacillations of the emperor, and the hostility of the Dutch, for whom he always nourished an inveterate dislike. "They wrong you in all Parts, and grow
