Captain Welsh’s gloomy forecasts came true quickly. The greatest confusion ensued ; the central Government lost: control over outlying provinces. At Gauhati a Bengali merce-- nary Hajara Singh usurped power, sold the office of Bar Phukan stay POLITICAL HISTORY 85 to one condidate for ten thousand rupees and then supplanting him sold it to another who promised sixty thousand rupees and raised the amount by despoiling the Kamakhya, Hajo and other temples of their gold and silver utensils.24_ Hajara Singh could ultimately be defeated and killed. In Upper Assam the Burha Gohain created a standing army modelled on that maintained by the East India Company and recruited from those who served with credit in the Burha Gohain’s operations against the Moamarias. They were given uniform, armed with flint-lock guns purchased in Calcutta, drilled and disciplined by two of Captain Welsh’s native officers who had been heavily bribed to stay on in Assam. Aided by this force, the King’s officers began to be able to deal with the insurgents boldly and firmly and but for the intervention of the Burmese, the downfall of the Ahom dynasty might have been prevented or considerably delayed. Previously flint guns were not in use in Assam. There was a plentiful supply of match-locks. Captain Welsh found twenty thousand match-lock guns at Gauhati but the officials had so neglected their duties that “there were few who knew how to use them.”? About sixty years previously the Khamtis had descended from the hills to the east and settled on the bank of the Tenga- pani with the permission of the Ahom Raja. In 1794 they took Sadiya, defeated the Raja set up by some Doms of the Moamaria sect and reduced the local Assamese to slavery. The Khamti Chief made himself the Sadiya Khowa Gohain. The Ahoms lost control over Sadiya. Devastation of the country Where the Moamarias held sway, whole villages were destroyed, inhabitants were robbed of their possessions, forced to flee the country or subsist on the flesh of unclean animals or wild fruits and roots. Gaurinath in his letter to Sir John Shore said that the Moamarias had destroyed “Cows, Brahmans, Women and Children’ to the extent of one hundred thousand lives. The country between Dergaon and Rangour, once so highly cultivated, was desolate, with many large villages entirely deserted. In lower Assam the Bengal mercenaries and gangs of marauding bandits caused havoc. Where