Chapter PENANG to PEON of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

le Chef des Pions, chez qui s’étaient fait les deux mariages.”—Norbert, Mém. iii. 129.

1746.—“As the Nabob’s behaviour when Madras was attacked by De la Bourdonnais, had caused the English to suspect his assurances of assistance, they had 2,000 Peons in the defence of Cuddalore. …”—Orme, i. 81.

c. 1760.—“Peon. One who waits about the house to run on messages; and he commonly carries under his arm a sword, or in his sash a krese, and in his hand a ratan, to keep the rest of the servants in subjection. He also walks before your palanquin, carries chits (q.v.) or notes, and is your body-guard.”—Ives, 50.

1763.—“Europeans distinguish these undisciplined troops by the general name of Peons.”—Orme, ed. 1803, i. 80.

1772.—Hadley, writing in Bengal, spells the word pune. but this is evidently phonetic.

c. 1785.—“… Peons, a name for the infantry of the Deckan.”—Carraccioli’s Life of Clive, iv. 563.

1780–90.—“I sent off annually from Sylhet from 150 to 200 (elephants) divided into 4 distinct flocks. … They were put under charge of the common peon. These people were often absent 18 months. On one occasion my servant Manoo … after a twelve-months’ absence returned … in appearance most miserable; he unfolded his girdle, and produced a scrap of paper of small dimensions, which proved to be a banker’s bill amounting to 3 or 4,000 pounds,—his own pay was 30 shillings a month. … When I left India Manoo was still absent on one of these excursions, but he delivered to my agents as faithful an account of the produce as he would have done to myself. …”—Hon. R. Lindsay, in Lives of the Lindsays, iii. 77.

1842.—“… he was put under arrest for striking, and throwing into the Indus, an inoffensive Peon, who gave him no provocation, but who was obeying the orders he received from Captain—. The Major General has heard it said that the supremacy of the British over the native must be maintained in India, and he entirely concurs in that opinion, but it must be maintained by justice.”—Gen. Orders, &c., of Sir Ch. Napier, p. 72.

1873.—“Pandurang is by turns a servant to a shopkeeper, a peon, or orderly, a groom to an English officer … and eventually a pleader before an English Judge in a populous city.”—Saturday Review, May 31, p. 728.