What is full as remarkable, he freed the Hindoos forever from that tax which the Mahomedans have laid upon every country over which the sword of Mahomet prevailed,--namely, a capitation tax upon all who do not profess the religion of the Mahomedans.

But the Hindoos, by express charter, were exempted from that mark of servitude, and thereby declared not to be a conquered people.
The native princes, in all their transactions with the Mogul government, carried the evident marks of this free condition in a noble independency of spirit.

Within their own districts the authority of many of them seemed entire.

We are often led into mistakes concerning the government of Hindostan, by comparing it with those governments where the prince is armed with a full, speculative, entire authority, and where the great people have, with great titles, no privileges at all, or, having privileges, have those privileges only as subjects.

But in Hindostan the modes, the degrees, the circumstances of subjection varied infinitely.
In some places hardly a trace at all of subjection was to be discerned; in some the rajahs were almost assessors of the throne, as in this case of the Rajah Cheyt Sing.