Machine summary:
and a khoofe-naoees or confidential correspondent who sent a private and particular account of every occurrence worthy of notice ; and although these Lord-Lieutenants were often particular friends or near relations to the prince, he did not trust entirely to themselves for a faith• ful and impartial report of their administration, and degraded them when they appeared to deserve it, either for their own faults, or for their negligence in not checking the delinquencies of their subordinate officers ; which shows that even the Mogul Princes, although their form of government admitted of nothing better, were convinced that in a country so rich and so replete with temptations, a restraint of some kind was absolutely necessary to prevent the abuses that are so liable· to flow from the possession of power.
' Court favourites retained their powers, and the King and _his minister relied entirely, as heretofore, upon the reports of the news-writers, who attend officially upon all officers in charge of districts, fiscal and judicial court, troops establishments of all kinds, for the facts of all cases on which they might have to pass orders; and remained as ignorant as their predecessors of the real state of the administration and the real sufferings of the people, if not of the real losses to the Exchequer .
The first entry in the papers of Aurangzeb's reign is dated 25th Muhar• ram of the 3rd year, and records a short journey of the Emperor in a taldu-rasoan.