Confessions of a Thug

I have heard, have read bold fables of enormity, Devised to make men wonder, but this hardness Transcends all fiction. LAW OF LOMBARDY.

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LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1858.

PREFACE.

As nearly twenty years have elapsed since the original publication of this Work, a revised edition might, but for the present absorbing interest of Indian affairs, be considered unnecessary.

On its first appearance--received as an exciting romance--the generality of readers little knew how much of melancholy and revolting truth lay beneath the surface. At the present time it may deserve a more attentive study; recent events will have too well prepared the Reader's mind for implicit belief in all the systematic atrocities narrated: they are true, and most of them found their first record in legal and official documents brought under the notice of Captain Taylor, who from an early age possessed the rare advantage of long study and intimate knowledge of the languages, manners, and customs of the natives, Mahomedans as well as Hindoo. In fact, it may safely be affirmed, that the Reader will find no characters introduced, no scenes delineated, nor customs and manners of the East described, which have not been faithfully drawn from objects with which the writer was perfectly familiar.

It will scarcely fail to be remarked, with what consummate art such numerous bodies of men were organized, and for a long time kept absolutely unknown, while committing acts of cruelty and rapine hardly conceivable; countenanced too, and secretly supported, by men in authority, and even by Priests, Brahmins, and Fakeers, eager to share in their unhallowed gains.

The Reader is particularly requested to peruse Captain Taylor's Introduction, as affording a valuable key to the subsequent narrative. It may also furnish some clue to the successful concealment of a rebellion, in the existence of which many of our oldest and most experienced officers, and men high in authority, absolutely withheld belief, till too late and too cruelly convinced of their fatal error. Whatever can help us to arrive at a full and precise knowledge of the causes and the extent of this singular conspiracy, which must have resulted in the destruction of our Eastern Empire, had it not been upheld by constancy and heroism yet more extraordinary, is of the utmost value, and merits a deeper interest and more serious attention than any romance can claim.

P. M. T.

INTRODUCTION.

The tale of crime which forms the subject of the following pages is, alas! almost all true; what there is of fiction has been supplied only to connect the events, and make the adventures of Ameer Ali as interesting as the nature of his horrible profession would permit me.

I became acquainted with this person in 1832. He was one of the approvers or informers who were sent to the Nizam's territories from Saugor, and whose appalling disclosures caused an excitement in the country which can never be forgotten. I have listened to them with fearful interest, such as I can scarcely hope to excite in the minds of my readers; and I can only add, in corroboration of the ensuing story, that, by his own confessions, which were in every particular confirmed by those of his brother informers, and are upon official record, he had been directly concerned in the murder of seven hundred and nineteen persons. He once said to me, "Ah! Sir, if I had not been in prison twelve years, the number would have been a thousand!"