58 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
inferred that assignees of all classes enjoyed at least their 
fair share of the prosperity of the kingdom; and we may 
perhaps go further, and say that they were under less 
temptation than usual to exploit the peasants who had come 
under their control. The nobles at any rate became rich 
(P- 297), and accumulated large stores, while we now begin 
to hear of great fortunes being left at death, a topic which 
becomes familiar in the Mogul period. 
Firliz was liberal in the matter of Grants. At his ac- 
cession, he restored! to the claimants large numbers of 
Grants which had been resumed by his predecessors, and 
in the early years of his reign he made fresh Grants “every 
day” to the host of candidates present in the capital. The 
chronicler speaks of the restoration of Grants which dated 
trom 170 years back; this carries us beyond the establish- 
ment of the Delhi kingdom, and the passage is so fervid that 
not much stress can be placed on its wording, but it is 
allowable to infer that Firtiz recognised his predecessors’ 
Grants as establishing a claim which ought to be satisfied. 
This inference is confirmed by a passage in the King’s 
Memoir, where he records that he directed claimants to 
Grants which had been resumed to produce their evidence, 
and promised that they should receive the land, or anything 
else, to which they were entitled. In this reign, therefore, 
we come within measurable distance of the idea of a pro- 
prietary right in Grants; but the idea was not destined to 
develop, and in the Mogul period the practice of arbitrary 
resumption was well established. 
Under Firiiz we hear very little of the Hindu Chiefs, the 
other important class of Intermediaries. The general 
averments of continued tranquillity, taken with the absence 
of records of punitive expeditions, suggest that their relations 
with the Administration were normally friendly, but I have 
found no details throwing light on their position, except 
in regard to two Chiefs belonging to the province of Awadh. 
When the King was marching through this province on an 
expedition to Bengal, the Chiefs (Rai) of Gorakhpur and 
Kharosa, who had formerly paid their revenue in Awadh, but 
for some years had been in “rebellion,” and had withheld 
! Barni, 558; Futuhat, as in Elliot, iii. 386. and Or. 2039, f. 3047.