Remarks on the Ryotwa^ree 
 & Mocurrery Systems. 

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 IT was my intention at first to obtain two written 
 copies of these 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 RYOTWARREE & MOCURRERY SYSTEMS:" 
 
 one for the Honorable Board of Control, and the other 
 for the Honorable Court of Directors ; but finding it 
 difficult to obtain an expeditious and good amanuensis, 
 and considering that I might want more than two copies, 
 I have deemed it advisable to have a few impressions 
 struck off. 
 
 I regret that the appearance of formal publication is 
 thus exhibited. I have however attended more to mat- 
 ter than manner, and hope for an indulgent perusal by 
 East India officers, for whom these suggestions are ex- 
 clusively intended. 
 
 f hP*
 
 TO THE 
 
 HON. WILLIAM ASTELL, CHAIRMAN, 
 
 AND 
 
 COURT OF DIRECTORS OF THE HON. EAST 
 INDIA COMPANY. 
 
 Homines sapientes, et ista auctoritate, et potestate 
 prseditos qua vos estis, ex quibus rebus maxime respublica 
 laborat, iis maxime mederi convenit. CICERO. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great principles of progression 
 in human affairs, the whole native vigor of a state, may be 
 kept down for ages, and the comfort, and prosperity and 
 active industry of unexisting millions be blasted by regula- 
 tions, which in the intention of their generous projectors were 
 to stimulate those very energies which they repressed, and to 
 relieve that very misery which they rendered irremediable. 
 
 DR THOMAS BROWN.
 
 -f 6,3 
 /V^TV 
 
 ISJ-S 
 
 v-^5 
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 RYOTWARREE & MOCURRERY SYSTEMS. 
 
 IVloRE than half a century has elapsed since the Com- 
 ^ pany of Merchants trading to the East Indies became 
 g sovereigns of an extensive and populous territory in '7* 
 Hindostan, to which they have been constantly adding 
 valuable acquisitions. 
 
 That the lot of millions of Asiatic subjects submitted 
 
 by the dispensations of Providence to the superinteud- 
 
 ance of the Company, has not been indifferent to them, 
 
 $ is evinced by the very voluminous correspondences 
 
 ^ published for public perusal. In the year 1792, with 
 
 -' the approbation of the Board of Control, the Company 
 
 o being conscious of the evils which the natives had long 
 
 experienced from uncertainty and insecurity, resolved 
 
 upon the introduction of permanent settlements of the 
 
 land tax into Bengal, Bahar, and Benares, and all 
 
 their other provinces ; and this system it was stated 
 
 would "form an epoch in Hindostan, from which would 
 
 " be dated security of property and permanency ofpros- 
 
 . " parity, and an important change full of most beneficial 
 
 <[ " consequences" 
 
 Unfortunatly since these tidings of great joy were 
 
 jl proclaimed, doubts have been suggested, whether a 
 
 ^llyotwarree System for the collection of the revenue 
 
 from each cultivator would not be preferable '. hence 
 
 3548U3
 
 J 
 
 discussions have arisen, and a postponement has been 
 ordered of the permanent land tax solemnly promised. 
 The land-holders and cultivators therefore have been 
 involved in all the perturbations of suspense, and all 
 the evils of uncertainty, by temporary experiments. 
 
 Being seriously impressed with a belief, that longer 
 procrastination will be attended with dangerous and 
 ruinous consequences, I have taken up my pen to 
 submit to superior judgments my sentiments on the 
 two Systems entitled Mocurrery and Ryotwarree ; and 
 being very anxious to obtain attention, now annex some 
 testimonials to demonstrate that 1 do not intrude myself 
 upon the notice of the Honourable the Chairman and 
 Court of Directors without previous knowledge and 
 practical experience. 
 
 Vanity and ambition will not I hope be attributed to 
 me, for at the period of life to which I have arrived, 
 they are extinguished ; nothing but a conviction that 
 the happiness of the natives, the security of our Indian 
 possessions, and the credit of the British nation, depend 
 upon a speedy decision on the question I am about to 
 discuss, could have drawn from me these valedictory 
 sentiments it is in truth become an imperative duty 
 forme to defend and if possible to extend that perma- 
 nent System which I introduced under the auspices of 
 Marquis Cornwallis " clarum et venerabile nomen" 
 
 Copy of a Letter from Charles Boddam to T.Law, Esq. 
 at Calcutta, dated Gyu, July 12, 1790. 
 
 "SIR, 
 
 " The native inhabitants of this district, 
 being desirous of transmitting their sentiments and
 
 approbation of your conduct during the period of your 
 administration, have requested me to forward the en- 
 closed address to you. I feel particular satisfaction in 
 being the channel of conveying to you the accompanying 
 paper ; and I can with truth assure you, that I firmly 
 believe they have expressed their real feelings, and that 
 they sincerely regret the necessity which occasioned 
 your being removed from presiding over them." 
 " I remain, Sir, &c. 
 
 "CHARLES BODDAM." 
 
 THE ADDRESS. 
 
 " The just Judge and beneficent Magistrate, Mr. T. 
 LAW, who, during six years presided over the district 
 of Bahar, having, in his excellent administration, dis- 
 played the most laudable qualities, and performed the 
 most praiseworthy actions ; having studied the welfare 
 of all ranks of people, distinguishing the liberal and 
 noble, rendering justice to the oppressed, and cherishing 
 the afflicted; giving ease and satisfaction to all; shewing 
 natural goodness and acquired virtues, in his conduct, 
 to the high and to the low, to the rich and to the poor ; 
 treating all with kindness, and receiving from all a good 
 name, whereby the happiness of the people and the 
 prosperity of the country were promoted : we therefore 
 with one voice, and one mind, of our free will and accord, 
 make the following declaration, that we, all of us, are, 
 in every respect, satisfied with, and grateful to, the 
 gentleman above-mentioned, and that we regard his 
 administration as a blessing to us. Now it happens that 
 this gentlemen is about to quit our district, and we are, 
 one and all, in the greatest degree afflicted; we are
 
 I 
 
 fi 
 
 impressed with the deepest concern on this account, 
 and having our hands lifted up to the Deity, in prayer 
 for his life, prosperity and exaltation : may the Almighty 
 God accept our prayers, advance him to the highest 
 dignities, and bless him with every enjoyment worldly 
 and heavenly !" 
 
 The following Letter was from Mr. Law's successor in 
 Office, at Bahar. 
 
 "SIR, 
 
 " A number of the principal and most 
 respectable inhabitants of this district, lately presented 
 a petition to me to this effect : ' It was our wish, that 
 the address which we presented for Mr. Law, at the 
 time of his departure from this station, expressing our 
 grateful sense of the advantages we had enjoyed from 
 his just and upright conduct, while Collector, Judge, 
 and Magistrate of the district, should be made known 
 to the Governor-General in Council ; but we forbore 
 expressing that wish, lest, from Mr. Law's still continuing 
 in the country, and in high station, it might have been 
 imputed to interested motives, or seem to originate less 
 in gratitude for former obligations, than in the expecta- 
 tion of future favours. As, however, that gentleman is 
 on the eve of quitting this country, and can no longer 
 confer benefits upon us, our former delicate objection 
 no longer exists; for which reason, we request you to 
 make known to his Lordship in Council the happiness 
 we enjoyed under Mr. Law's administration.' In con- 
 formity to this request, I immediately transmitted to
 
 the Secretary of the Government a copy of that letter, 
 and I do myself the honor to enclose another copy of it 
 to yourself. As a mind, such as yours, must feel the 
 highest gratification in seeing its successful labours for 
 the public weal so rewarded, I cannot refrain from en- 
 closing also a copy and translation of the petition pre- 
 sented to me by the inhabitants, on this occasion. In 
 addition to their approbation, suffer me, as your successor, 
 to add an assurance, that flattery appears to have had no 
 share, either in the address presented you by the inha- 
 bitants at your departure, or in their present request. 
 They cannot but feel that your local exertions gave effect 
 and stability to the enlightened system of settlement 
 now adopted, which, by putting an end to the baneful 
 custom of constantly demanding an increase of revenue, 
 or, in other words, taxing industry in proportion to its 
 efforts, promises to the active land-holder the just re- 
 ward of his labors, confirms security of landed property, 
 and disseminates universal confidence. In addition to 
 the well-earned thanks of the inhabitants of the district 
 at large, permit me, Sir, to offer you my sincerest wishes 
 for your future prosperity, and to assure you that it shall 
 be my study to perpetuate those good effects, to which 
 your line of conduct has already given rise." 
 
 " I have the honor, &c. 
 
 " A. SEATON, Collector at Bahar." ^^ ^ 
 
 To THOMAS LAW, ESQ. 
 Calcutta.
 
 8 
 
 Extract of a Letter, dated 4th January, 1791, from 
 
 the Board of Revenue of Calcutta. 
 " Sensible of the zealous and able assistance that we 
 have received from Mr. Law, we cannot forbear ac- 
 knowledging the same on the present occasion, and 
 expressing our sincere regret at the cause which has 
 rendered his return to Europe necessary." 
 
 Extract of a Letter from Marquis Cornwall, dated 
 
 25/i January, 1791. 
 
 " The Governor General in Council is concerned 
 for the occasion so fully certified, which requires 
 Mr. Law to leave this country, and cannot permit him 
 to depart without expressing his sense of Mr. Law's 
 services to the Company; and of the able, zealous, 
 and upright conduct that he has uniformly manifested 
 . in the discharge of his public duty." 
 
 Extract of a Letter from Marquis Cornwallis, addressed 
 to T. Law, Collector of Bahar, 2lst of January, 1789. 
 " The Governor General is truly sensible of the 
 services of the Collector of Bahar, (Mr. T. Law) and 
 acknowledges the substantial advantages which the 
 Company has derived from them." 
 
 Extract of a Letter to T. Law, from J. H. Harrison, 
 23rd of March, 1789, dated Revenue Board, Calcutta. 
 
 "SIR, 
 
 " A letter from the Governor General in 
 
 Council, relative to the remarks of a number of the 
 Board of Revenue, on the general plan of settlement
 
 which you lately proposed, containing a public testi- 
 mony highly honorable to you, I am directed by the 
 Board of Revenue to transmit you the accompanying 
 extract therefrom, for your information." 
 
 Extract of a Letter from the Governor General in 
 Council, 18th March, 1789, recorded on the pro- 
 ceedings of the Board of Revenue, on the 2Qlh of the 
 same month, enclosed in the Secretary's Letter. 
 
 " The laudable motives by which Mr. Law has been 
 actuated in offering the plan to which the minute re- 
 fers, for the consideration of the Board of Revenue, 
 ought to have secured to him that candid and liberal 
 treatment, in stating a different opinion, which it merits 
 from every person, even of the most established repu- 
 tation for revenue knowledge. And we must at the 
 same time remark, that Mr. Law has, by the benevo- 
 lence of his character, his application to business, and 
 his revenue knowledge, essentially contributed to the 
 happiness of the people and the prosperity of the dis- 
 trict under his charge." *rf^ 
 
 " J. H. HARRISON, Secretary." 
 
 Extract of a Letter from Marquis Cornwallis, dated 
 New Burlington Street, 14th April, 1794. 
 
 " DEAR LAW, 
 
 I read your letter yesterday with 
 
 concern. But if your resolution is taken it will be 
 needless for me to expostulate. You may be assured 
 that I shall never cease to acknowledge with gratitude 
 the lights that I received from you respecting the
 
 10 
 
 Mocurrery System and permanent settlement ; and that 
 you will always possess a great share of my regard and 
 esteem. 
 
 " Your most faithful friend, 
 
 CORNWALLIS." 
 
 Extract of a Letter from Marquis Cornwallis to 
 Thomas Law, dated Whitehall, 28th March, 1796. 
 " I have received your letters of the 5th and 17th 
 of January. We laboured together for the security of 
 person and property to the subjects of the British 
 Government in Asia. That security is now further 
 removed from the French Republic, than it was from 
 the natives of India in the most corrupt times. I re- 
 ceive letters constantly from our excellent friend Bar- 
 low, one of the first of men ; and to whose rare and 
 great abilities, and great and benevolent mind, I owe 
 any credit I may have for carrying into execution that 
 plan, of which I shall ever with gratitude acknowledge 
 you as the founder." 
 
 CORNWALLIS." 
 
 These flattering documents, which prove early suc- 
 cessful exertion, were intended to remain amongst 
 other papers, for the gratifying perusal of my son after 
 my death ; and are now only produced that my reason- 
 ing may obtain weight. My anxiety on this subject is, 
 I trust, not only excusable but laudable ; for I find on 
 my return, as one risen from the dead, the Mocurrery 
 System which was ordered to be extended, arrested in 
 its progress, and a new one introducing or, at any
 
 11 
 
 rate, attempted to be substituted, which is to exclude the 
 Zemindars : that the opinion of the natives respecting a 
 permanent settlement, and of the Company's servants, 
 may be known, I subjoin an extract of a letter from 
 Mr. Brook, Collector of Shawabad, April 2, 1789. 
 
 " Before I conclude this Letter, I beg leave to men- 
 tion the general prevalence of an idea all over these 
 parts, that a settlement of the Land Revenue is now in 
 deliberation ; indeed I have been favored by Mr. Law 
 with the perusal of a plan of this nature, submitted by 
 him to the consideration of Government. The irresis- 
 tible impulse of conviction, urges me to embrace this 
 occasion of testifying my warm sense of its principles 
 and probable effects. Woeful experience of the de- 
 structive consequences of the farming system excite in 
 me the most ardent wishes for its abolition. The very 
 report has already raised in the minds of the Zemindars 
 all the perturbations of suspence ; the marked justice, 
 however, of the present administration, makes hope 
 predominate. They view with the eye of anticipation 
 the exhilirating prospect ; they consider it as the grand 
 epoch of liberty and of security of property. They 
 look forward with exultation to that happy day, when 
 arbitrary exaction shall be no more ; when they can 
 meet the returning year without fear of vexatious in- 
 vestigation, or of overrated assessment ; when evasion 
 and deceit shall be useless and disgraceful ; and uni- 
 versal ease, prosperity, and freedom, throw a veil of 
 oblivion over the sufferings of past uncertainty. 
 
 " This picture of their feelings, Gentlemen, is not
 
 12 
 
 by any means too highly colored ; it is the result of ob- 
 servation of fact. Mr. Adam Smith's opinion is, that 
 any tax whatever, not accurately defined and fixed in 
 its quantum, by some invariable standard, is liable to 
 abuse in its collection ; that the security of landed pro- 
 perty has contributed more than any other cause to the 
 riches and grandeur of the English nation. I consider, 
 that while Government's demand is subject to continual 
 variation, no vigilance and activity, no experience and 
 probity in the collector, will be equal to a complete 
 prevention of undue assessment. 
 
 " Periodical equalisation, is fair and equitable in 
 theory, but experience proves it unattainable in practice; 
 that the attempt checks the energy of improvement, fills 
 every mind with distrustful caution, and loosens the 
 grand link of permanent interest, by which the subject 
 has in all ages been most effectually secured in attach- 
 ment and allegiance. From the respectable authorities 
 of Mr. Francis in his minutes of council, and Messrs. 
 George Vansittart, Broughton Rous, Edward Baber, 
 and Lushington, in their evidence before a Committee 
 of the House of Commons, and the best information 
 derived from the most intelligent natives, I am confirmed 
 in my opinion, that the Zemindars are the undoubted 
 hereditary proprietors of the soil, while they continue 
 in allegiance, and pay their quotient to the state ; and 
 that the estimation of them as mere farmers is er- 
 
 roneous. 
 
 " The present system of collecting the revenue in 
 some cases, renders a strict and rigid administration of 
 justice in the civil courts absolutely impossible, without
 
 13 
 
 the risque of certain loss to government; the natives 
 know, feel, and lament the deplorable necessity. Mr. 
 Law's plan appears to me to simplify, but to remove 
 the present perplexities of collection ; to be friendly to 
 the strictest process of the judicial courts ; to be a 
 structure erected on the basis of equity, to be over- 
 thrown only by the subversion of our dominion. 
 
 " Allow me, Gentlemen, to apologise for this tres- 
 pass on your patience ; my earnest desire to see so 
 beneficial a measure as a permanent quit rent carried 
 into execution, has induced me (though unsanctioned 
 by official requisition) to trouble you with this public 
 expression of my sentiments of Mr. Law's benevolent 
 plan, a plan which, with a few subsidiary emendations, 
 will ensure the relief of anxious millions, diffuse uni- 
 versal satisfaction through every subordination of 
 landholders, and extend the fame of our justice through 
 the remotest kingdoms of the East." In corroboratioo 
 of the above, I will now give an extract from Mr. 
 Francis' minute in 1777, the reputed author of Junius, 
 whose style and reasoning surprised us all in India. 
 
 " One essential reason why government should 
 endeavour to restore the Zemindars to a state of com- 
 petence at least, if not of affluence is, that they are not 
 merely the stewards or collectors of the public revenue, 
 but are or ought to be the instruments of government 
 in almost every branch of the civil administration. If 
 this medium be removed, then government acts di- 
 rectly upon its subjects by its own officers, without the 
 assistance of those intermediate gradations of rank, 
 authority, and responsibility, by which all great civil
 
 14 
 
 societies are held together. A system which professes 
 to destroy that medium, might as well profess at once 
 the dissolution of the state, unless by the word state 
 we are only to understand the economical relation of 
 master and slave, not a political union of government 
 with its subjects." 
 
 Montesquieu states " that when the savages of Louis- 
 iana are desirous of fruit they cut down the tree and 
 then gather the fruit. This is an emblem of despotic 
 government : there is none that labors more under its 
 own weight than that wherein the prince declares himself 
 proprietor of all the lands, and heir to all his subjects. 
 Hence the neglect of agriculture arises, and if the prince 
 intermeddles likewise in trade, all manner of industry 
 is ruined. Under this sort of government, nothing is 
 repaired or improved, houses are built only for the 
 necessity of habitation. There is no digging of ditches 
 or planting of trees ; every thing is drawn from, but 
 nothing restored to the earth. 
 
 " Poverty and the precariousness of property in a 
 despotic state render usury natural, each person raising 
 the value of his money in proportion to the danger he 
 has in lending it ; misery therefore, pours in from all 
 parts into these unhappy countries, they are bereft of 
 every thing, even of the source of borrowing. 
 
 "To fix the revenues in a proper manner, regard 
 should be had both to the necessities of the state and 
 to those of the subjects. The real wants of the people, 
 ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the 
 state.
 
 15 
 
 " The effect of wealth in a country, is to inspire every 
 heart with ambition ; that of poverty is to give birth to 
 despair. If some subjects do not pay enough, the mis- 
 chief is not so great; their convenience and care turn 
 always to the public advantage. If some private people 
 pay too much, their ruin redounds to the public detriment. 
 If the government proportions its fortune to that of in- 
 dividuals, the care and conveniency. of the latter will 
 soon make its fortune rise. The whole depends upon a 
 critical moment, shall the state begin with impoverishing 
 the subjects to enrich itself, or had it better wait to be 
 enriched by its subjects. Is it more advisable for it to 
 have the former or the latter advantage ? which shall it 
 choose, to begin or to end with opulence? The duties 
 felt least by the people are those on merchandize, 
 because they are not demanded of them in form. 
 
 " Taxes ought to be very light in despotic govern- 
 ments, otherwise, who would be at the trouble of tilling 
 the land I besides how is it possible to pay heavy duties 
 in a government that makes no manner of returns to the 
 contributions of the subject. 
 
 " The exorbitant power of the prince and the extreme 
 depression of the people, require that there should not 
 be even the possibility of a mistake between them. 
 The taxes ought to be so easy to collect, and so clearly 
 settled, as to leave no opportunity for the collectors to 
 encrease or diminish them. 
 
 " It is a general rule that taxes may be heavier in 
 proportion to the liberty of the subject, and that there 
 is a necessity for reducing them, in proportion to the 
 increase of slavery. This has always been and always
 
 16 
 
 will be the case : it is a rule derived from nature, that 
 never varies. 
 
 " In some monarchies in Europe there are particular 
 provinces, which from the very nature of their civil 
 government, are in a more flourishing condition than 
 the rest ; it is pretended that these provinces are not 
 sufficiently taxed, because through the goodness of 
 their government, they are able to be taxed higher ; 
 hence the ministers seem constantly to cum at depriving 
 them of this very government, from whence a diffusive 
 blessing is derived, which redounds even to the sovereigns 
 advantage" 
 
 Dr. Johnson in his tour through the Hebrides, after 
 adverting to the arguments of men who not defective 
 in judgment and general experience, are advocates for 
 governments collecting immediately from the peasant, 
 says, " those who pursue this train of reasoning, 
 seem not sufficiently to enquire whither it will lead 
 them, nor to know that it will equally shew the propriety 
 of suppressing all wholesale trade." 
 
 After expatiating upon this, he concludes, "according 
 to these schemes, universal plenty is to begin and end 
 in universal misery. Hope and emulation will be utterly 
 extinguished, and as all must obey the call of immediate 
 necessity, nothing that requires extensive views, or pro- 
 vides for distant consequences will ever be performed." 
 In addition to the foregoing authorities, let me be 
 permitted to add the corroborating opinion of that pro- 
 found thinker, the Rev. Archdeacon Paley, who, in his 
 moral and political, pholosophy, observes, " that the 
 exclusive right to th? produce, is the only incitement
 
 17 
 
 which acts constantly and universally ; the only spring 
 which keeps human labour in motion. The proprietor 
 though he grant out his estate to farm, may be considered 
 as the occupier, inasmuch as he regulates the occupation 
 by the choice, superintendancy, and encouragement of 
 his tenants ; by the disposition of his lands ; by erecting 
 buildings, providing accommodations ; by prescribing 
 conditions or supplying implements and materials of 
 improvement; he is entitled by the rule of public ex- 
 pediency above-mentioned, to receive in the advance 
 of his rent, a share of the benefit which arises from the 
 encreased produce of his estate." The violation of this 
 fundamental maxim of Agrarian policy, constitutes the 
 chief objection to the holding of lands by the state, by 
 the king, and by corporate bodies. / 
 
 I have heretofore stated that a Mocurrery settlement 
 was to have been introduced throughout all the Com- 
 pany's provinces, and in proof thereof give the following 
 extract from the proceedings of the Governor-General 
 in Council. 
 
 " 5. The regulation contained in Section 29, Regu- 
 lation XXV. 1803, prescribes, that at the expiration of 
 the existing settlement in the provinces ceded by the 
 Nawaub YiflptT, shall be made for the period of four 
 years, in like manner the rules contained in Section 4, 
 5, and 6, Regulation IX. 1805, require that at the 
 expiration of the existing settlement in the conquered 
 provinces and in the Zillah of Bundlecund, two 
 more temporary settlements shall be made in the 
 said conquered provinces, and in the Zillah of 
 Bundlecund respectively. The Governor-General in
 
 18 
 
 Council however, hereby notifies to the Zemindars and 
 other actual proprietors of the land in the ceded and 
 conquered province*, that the Jumma which may be as- 
 sessed on their estates, in the last year of the settlement 
 immediately ensuing the present settlement, shall remain 
 fixed for ever ; in case the Zemindars shall now be willing, 
 to engage for the payment of the revenue in perpetuity , 
 and the engagement shall receive the sanction of the 
 Court of Directors." 
 
 The Court of Directors unfortunately refused their 
 confirmation of this promise, when the Governor-Ge- 
 neral had the painful task to announce to the natives 
 that all their fondly indulged expectations must be re- 
 linquished,, the Company having withheld their sanction, 
 (although the Zemindars had laboured to fulfil their 
 engagements to the Company by punctual payments of 
 their revenue to entitle them to the promised boon.) 
 A secret letter was written from Bengal, under date 
 October 9, 1812, from which the following is an extract : 
 " Under these circumstances it cannot be doubted 
 that under the arrangement of 1807, the Zemindars 
 and others would enter on the cultivation and manage- 
 ment of their estates with, a confidence little short in 
 their judgment, of certainty in the permanence of the 
 Jumma ; with these impressions capital must have been 
 employed in the improvement of the lands, which under 
 different circumstances would have been appropriated 
 \/ to other purposes. The country and the government 
 are already reaping the advantage of that capital; landed 
 property is becoming in the estimation of the people 
 what it must ever be under a good system of government, 
 
 one of the greatest of human blessings : the security for 
 A 
 
 ,
 
 19 
 
 >/ 
 the payment of the public revenue is rendered hiore 
 
 substantial by the enhanced value of lands ; the people 
 are gradually divesting themselves of predatory habits 
 and seeking by means of peaceful and useful industry, 
 those fruits, which they formerly only attempted to 
 acquire by oppression, rapine, and exaction. 
 
 " 17. It is under circumstances such as we have stated 
 that we are commanded to announce to the great body 
 of the people that the permanency of the Jumma no 
 longer exists. The assurances given to land-holders 
 in the year 1803 and 1805, and which for the reasons 
 already stated, we consider to be still in full force and 
 effect, may in some degree alleviate the disappointment 
 which must be experienced from the operation of the 
 present orders. Still it is impossible to judge a priori 
 of the effects with which that disappointment may be 
 attended. It is a feeling which is nearly allied to dis- 
 content; and when these impressions are felt in any con- 
 siderable degree, resistance to public authority is always 
 to be apprehended. The people have furnished on affairs 
 of comparatively small and trivial interest, examples of 
 a disposition to assist their wishes by tumult and outrage; 
 a more powerful incitement to seek redres^ cannot be 
 given in any country, and cannot extend to a larger or 
 more powerful class of the community, than injuries 
 supposed to be done to the great body of landed pro- 
 prietors." 
 
 Here let us pause. 
 
 Our arms have been so successful hitherto in conse- 
 quence of our superior military discipline, and of the divi- 
 ded interests and animosities which prevented any well, 
 arranged combination against us, that very few seem to
 
 20 
 
 be aware how slender are the cords by which the Com- 
 pany retain their possessions in India. 
 
 The abundance of wealth in every way every where 
 exhibited in this prosperous isle upon which the boun- 
 ties of Providence are so profusely lavished, seem so 
 to have lulled us-into a delusive confidence, that it is 
 very difficult to induce any one but an East-Indian to 
 deliberate upon future probabilities naturally generating 
 by changes already effected. 
 
 The politics of Europe, of America, nay even of 
 Africa, obtain readier attention than those of remote 
 Asia. vr, 
 
 1st. Because the management of the latter is given 
 almost exclusively to a distinct government. 
 
 2d. Because the documents to be perused are so 
 multifarious and voluminous. 
 
 3d. Because the terms used are often incompre 
 hensible. 
 
 4th. Because subjects, though less important, appear 
 more immediately interesting and more easily un- 
 ravelled. 
 
 5th. Because eloquence may be more easily dis- 
 played, and passions more quickly excited about the 
 conduct of neighbouring nations, than of a people so 
 differing in religion, language, and manners, who have 
 always been so promptly subdued by the employ even 
 of their own countrymen. 
 
 I must indeed acknowledge that upon my resolving 
 to make myself acquainted with transactions in India 
 subsequent to my departure from it, more than thirty 
 years ago, I became almost startled'at the many pon- 
 derous folio volumes which accumulated upon my
 
 21 
 
 table, together with a pile of pamphlets not to he, ne- 
 glected, for they contained essential facts and argu- 
 ments. My endeavour will be to facilitate knowledge 
 by Extracts. 
 
 When we take a retrospect of the astonishing events 
 which have occurred during the last half century, viz. 
 the independence of the United States in North 
 America, and the numerous fluctuations in the fate of 
 empires during the French Revolution, and the sepa- 
 ration of the Brazils from the Portuguese government, 
 and the emancipation of republics in South America 
 from the Spanish monarchy, and the wonderful disen- 
 thraldom of the Greeks and the extinction of the empire 
 of the great Mogul in Asia, and of Tippo Sultan, and 
 of the Nabob of Arcot, and of the Peshwa cum multis 
 aliis , can we behold with apathy the great change in 
 actual operation, to set aside all the Zemindars great 
 and small, spread over the immense continent which 
 the Company possesses in India, with a strange heed- 
 lessness of their pretensions (I might say their incontro- 
 vertible long established rights, of their influence so 
 well and often so wofully ascertained) that the revenue 
 may be collected from each cultivator of the soil through 
 the agency of the Company's juvenile servants and their 
 native delegates, from a population consisting almost 
 entirely of agriculturists and amounting to nearly one 
 hundred millions of subjects. Mr. Burke has empha- 
 tically observed " the natives scarcely know what it is 
 to see the grey head of an Englishman ; young men 
 (boys almost.) govern there, without society and without 
 sympathy with the natives. They have no more social 
 habits with the people than if they still resided in Eng-
 
 land ; nor indeed any species of intercourse, but that 
 which is necessary to making a sudden fortune, and 
 with a view to remote settlement ; animated with all the 
 avarice of age and all the impetuosity of youth, they 
 roll in one after another, wave after wave, and there is 
 nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless 
 hopeless prospect of a new flight of birds of prey and 
 passage, with appetites continually renewing, for the 
 food that is continually wasting. Every rupee of profit 
 made by Englishmen is for ever lost to India." 
 
 That I may not appear to be attempting to enlist 
 moral feelings (which some may term prejudices) in my 
 favour, I will without further delay endeavour to give 
 a calm and impartial view of the Mocurrery System so 
 lately supported by Marquis Cornwallis and all the old 
 Companies' servants, and the Ryotwarree System now 
 recommended by persons of indisputable abilities and 
 integrity. 
 
 Having found that perspicuity was much promoted 
 when I contrasted (see my Rising Resources, published 
 in 1792) the advantages and disadvantages of the Farm^ 
 ing System and the Mocurrery System, I will now 
 have resort to the same mode of reasoning. 
 
 I only lament the inedequacy of my abilities, and hope 
 that some of the zealous, enlightened and experienced 
 old servants of the Company will strengthen what is 
 weak in me and illustrate what is obscure. 
 
 When I think that the prosperity of millions in ex- 
 istence and unborn for years to come; when I consi- 
 der what sanguinary concussions, terrible devastations, 
 and ruinous results, may be occasioned by an erroneous 
 decision, the pen trembles in my hand : a more im-
 
 28 
 
 portant question cannot he agitated. If the majority of 
 the natives be alienated from us, by this Ryotwari'ee 
 system, the military discipline now introduced by the 
 autocrat of Russia on the Caspian, and by the French 
 into Egypt and into Persia, into the territories on the 
 branches of the Indus, and the belligerent ardour of the 
 Mahrattas, Rajapoots, Jauts, &c. may all be marshalled 
 against us, without any feelings in favor of a few Euro- 
 peans, speaking a different language, professing a dif- 
 ferent religion, wearing different clothes, and not at- 
 tached by any one tie of common interest. 
 
 If the cord of opinion by which we now hold so many * 
 millions of distant people in subjection, and which has 
 been gradually attenuating, should be suddenly broken y 
 by our own rashness and impolicy, those industrious 
 manufacturers who now supply India with goods, and 
 the numerous seamen engaged by shipping would be 
 
 V 
 
 suddenly thrown out of employ. The proprietors of 
 East India stock, the creditors of the Company, the 
 Board of Control, the Directors, the numerous compa- 
 nfcs, officers of every description at home and abroad 
 would lose their incomes, an enormous debt would be 
 increased in the conflict to preserve possession, and a 
 scene of carnage but let me refrain from pourtraying ^ 
 a scene which, I shudder to contemplate; let me 
 
 ^^^^^-- 
 
 ^ 
 
 rather wieb at once to make the contrast I propose, 
 that by a judicious decision, calamities may be averted, 
 and millions protected equally " by us from anarchy 
 and invasion, and be attached by a common interest. 
 Namque idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma 
 amicitia est"
 
 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 The Court of Directors in their revenue letter to 
 Bengal, dated 29th January, 1813, recommended to 
 the attention of the Governor General in Council the 
 instructions of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, and the 
 reports of the same gentleman. (See Selection of 
 Papers from page 75 to 131, and State Section 36.) 
 " We are particularly desirous of impressing upon your 
 minds the importance of making yourselves thoroughly 
 acquainted with the nature and principles of a Ryotwarree 
 Settlement, and with the right and proper course to be 
 pursued in the first introduction of it into a district," &c. 
 Section 37. We are equally convinced, that the best con- 
 certed arrangements will fall far short of the necessary 
 objects in view, unless followed up and invigorated in 
 thieir operation by an unabated zeal on the part of the 
 collectors in superintending with a watchful and per- 
 vading eye and controlling with a firm and energetic 
 hand the conduct of the native servants," &c. 
 
 Mr. Munro's first Letter is on the subject of re- 
 missions, which " are in general owing, 1st. to t)ie 
 peculation of the Aumildar and other district servants ; 
 2nd. peculation of the Potails and Curnares; 3rd. im- 
 providence of the Ryots; 4th. bad crops and other acci- 
 dents; 5th. over assessment." Mr.Monro aftetpxpatiating 
 upon the several frauds practised under the three first 
 heads, when he comes to the subject of bad crops, ob- 
 serves, " all complaints regarding them should be re- 
 ceived with very great caution. Were an investigation 
 to be ordered whenever a cultivator thought proper to 
 solicit an indulgence for his loss, claims would soon be
 
 MOCURRERY. 
 
 In forming Mocurrery Settlements, previous mensu- 
 ration, if deemed requisite, may be introduced, and 
 time may be allowed for the attainment of all requisite 
 knowledge, and it may be proceeded with gradually. 
 One great advantage arises from it that if the Zemin- 
 dar is too lightly assessed, he obtains thereby funds 
 more rapidly to improve his estate, and if over assessed, 
 his lands will be relinquished, till the government's 
 officer assesses it more lightly. In the latter case the 
 injury is trifling, and all the rest of the Zemiudaries are 
 improving, and every improvement must redound to 
 the profit of the government. The government is the 
 representative of the whole people, and can only be 
 rich according to their wealth. The first question of 
 the government should be how can we render our peo- 
 ple industrious for productiveness, and prosperous to 
 excite attachment ? From the soil every thing origi- 
 nates which gives men enjoyments. By making Zemin- 
 dars Mocurrerydars, the government gives a value to 
 land, and obtains a security for its revenue ; and also 
 relies on the stimulus given by Providence to call forth 
 man's energies. Every year also increases confidence, 
 gratitude, and loyalty. The Mocurrerydar is enabled to 
 give long leases, and will cherish his Ryots ; nay, each 
 Mocurrerydar, being desirous of improving his estate, 
 will, by competition, give higher allowances to cultiva- 
 tors ; he will also erect permanent structures. Thus 
 also, a class of native gentlemen will be raised, who will 
 have an interest in the continuance of our Government 
 which secures to them security of property. The JVf o- 
 
 D
 
 26 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 come so numerous, that all the revenue servants in the 
 country would not be able to examine one half of them.'' 
 Were it even possible to estimate the actual loss in 
 every year, it would not follow that it ought to be re- 
 mitted ; for the same cultivators who have lost this year 
 may have gained last ; and as no extra assessment was 
 then laid upon their profit, no. remission can be now 
 fairly claimed for their loss. Whatever may have been 
 the crop, should it be even less than the seed, they 
 should be always made to pay their full rent if they can, 
 because good or bad seasons being supposed to be equal 
 in the long run, the loss would be merely temporary, 
 and the making of it good is only applying to the de- 
 ficiency of a year of scarcity the funds which have 
 arisen from one of abundance." 
 
 This reasoning would be equitable if there were not an 
 annual settlement to obtain annual increases of revenue, 
 to leave the Ryot as little as possible from every year's 
 crop. Mr. Munro then proceeds to state, " though 
 there is no rule by which a positive judgment can be 
 formed whether or not a Ryot who asks a remission 
 can pay his rents, it may in most cases be discovered 
 by ordering the amount of the failure to be assessed on 
 the village." What an extraordinary mode to secure 
 the government, if possible, from loss, what cultivator 
 also will labor if he know that he may be made answer- 
 able for his neighbours' mismanagement or indolence ? 
 
 Mr. Munro after this, gives a succinct account of the 
 mode by which he makes his Ryotwarree settlements ; 
 were I to copy the whole, it would of itself make a 
 pamphlet.
 
 MOCURRERY. 27 
 
 currery's rent rolls may be printed. "Waste lands, such 
 as the Sunderbands, may be surveyed, and laid out for 
 additional estates, and sold, as the United States now 
 do to the best bidder, a minimum price per acre being 
 fixed, below which the land must not be sold. 
 
 Mocurrerydars, on the security of these lauds, may 
 borrow money from Bankers. One great objection 
 repeatedly urged is, that there will be great inequality 
 in the profits of the Zemindars. This I think ought to 
 have no weight ; nature has given a variety of soils, 
 and different abilities to men ; those who wish to esta- 
 blish equality must use the bed of Procrustes. Well 
 may they be denominated levellers who would reduce 
 all landed proprietors to mere cultivators. Mr. Dundas 
 has observed that " hereditary estates in Scotland were 
 flourishing, whilst the crown forfeitures, under factors, 
 were every where distinguishable by their desolation 
 and sterility ; this has caused their restoration to their 
 ancient holders." 
 
 By making Mocurrery estates, the Company has 
 been enabled to establish courts of Adawlat, and to 
 interpose the shield of justice between the cultivator 
 and landlord, which would be impossible were the Com- 
 pany's revenue officers to make monthly collections 
 from the Ryots. 
 
 By separating all power of taxation, of transit duties, 
 &c. from the Zemindars, oppressions almost innumer- 
 able have at once been abolished. Mr. Willes, the 
 Collector of Sylhet, in his letter under date the 24th 
 of October, 1790, says, " Under the Bunder, by a late 
 investigation, I found, that thirty Chokys, at every one
 
 28 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 The land is to be measured. 
 Then to have 
 
 Classes. Pungah, or Dry Totacal, or Gar- Nnngali, or Wet 
 
 Land. den Land. Land. 
 
 C. Pagodas. F. C. C. Pagodas. F. C. C. Pagodas. F. C. 
 
 lt. 100 10 600 
 
 2d. 098 950 550 
 
 3d. 090 900 500 
 
 The dry land has 19 subdivisions, the garden land the 
 same, the wet land only 10; no information however 
 is given of the sources from whence these tables are 
 formed, a measurement of course is necessary. A 
 Tehsildar or the collector must go a circuit to encou- 
 rage the cultivators to get their ploughs to work. 
 These are Mr. Munro's words: " when the ploughing 
 begins the Potail ascertains what land each Ryot can 
 cultivate ; he does not fix the rents, because that is 
 done by the collector, because the settlement may be 
 raised or lowered by the collector; they are satisfied 
 with a promise." (few English farmers would commence 
 agriculture on a bare promise) " The collector sets out 
 on his circuit in September or October, when the early 
 crops begin to be reaped. On arriving in a district, he 
 assembles all the Ryots of the four or five nearest 
 villages," if the collector has many villages to fix the 
 revenue of the Ryots, the crops must be reaped before 
 he has concluded his engagements ; the assembly of 
 the Ryots at this period is of great injury. The sub- 
 collectors do the same : " If the crops are bad, and it 
 appears that some of the poor Ryots must have a remis- 
 sion, the loss, or a part of it, is assessed upon the lands 
 of the rest, where it can be done without causing any 
 material inconvenience." A farmer in England would
 
 MOCURRERY. 29 
 
 of which unauthorised duties were collected ; and some 
 of these were solely established for the purpose of 
 forcing boats to take a circuitous route, that the Bunder 
 duties might be exacted. I could enumerate many 
 other oppressive exactions, made by the Derossas of 
 Bazars, such as taxes on the birth of children," &c. 
 
 " Mr. Elliot in his report, recorded 18th Aug. 1789, 
 displays a specimen of impositions which raised the price 
 of commodities above 100 per cent, in three days' jour- 
 ney." So various indeed were the extortions enume- 
 rated, that human ingenuity can scarcely devise one 
 unpracticed ; and such were the destructive conse- 
 quences, that in some instances the expenses of esta- 
 blishments exceeded the amount of the collections. 
 
 This separation of the Sayr collections, from the Ze- 
 mindars, and the resumption of them by Government 
 which caused the abolition of nearly every one of them, 
 I shall always deem one of the great advantages of the 
 Mocurrery System. " Monsieur Turgot had formed a 
 plan of substituting one direct tax, instead of the mul. 
 tiplicity of indirect taxes of every kind, which are the 
 scourge of industry and of commerce, and the prime 
 source of the misery and the poverty of the people. 
 
 It is well known how greatly the commerce of 
 France is restricted by tolls and market duties ; the 
 remains of feudal anarchy, which distinguished by a va- 
 riety of barbarous names, direct commerce from its 
 natural channel, increase the price of necessaries, occa- 
 sion a superfluity in one place, and a scarcity in another." 
 If my Letters, when a collector of Bahar, or my mi- 
 nutes in the Revenue Board respecting the taxes be
 
 J 
 
 30 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 stare if any part of his neighbouring farmers loss was 
 put by the landlord upon him. " If aTehsildar lowers 
 rent without cause, the Ryots who do not share in the 
 remission, object to it and complain, or if without alter- 
 ing the rent of the village, he lowers that of one Ryot 
 and raises that of another unjustly, the Ryot on whom 
 the extra rent is thrown complains. There are cases 
 in which he does so, either from ignorance or corrupt 
 motives, but where the collector is vigilant, they are 
 not frequent. There is indeed no possibility of pre- 
 venting them altogether, for the collector when he 
 makes the settlement in person, may be deceived oc- 
 casionally by the servants of his own Cutcherry, who 
 may be dishonest as well as the Tehsildar." I desire 
 the whole letter may be carefully considered. He says 
 " without native Tehsildars, the Company's servants 
 could do little or nothing. The most experienced col- 
 lector could hardly make the settlement of ten villages 
 in a whole year, and after all it would most likely be 
 done very indifferently. The native servants are re- 
 strained as far as men with inadequate allowances can 
 be restrained." 
 
 Marquis Cornwallis was always in favour of adequate 
 salaries for officers in responsible situations of high trust. 
 If a view be taken from a map of the Company's terri- 
 tories from Ceylon to Sutledge on the banks of the 
 Indus, an estimate may |be formed of the number of 
 European collectors and of the native Tehsildars, who 
 must be employed to go through the above-mentioned 
 minutiae and details, and of the amount of the salaries 
 to be given for trusts requiring a combination of zeal, 
 knowlege, activity, assiduity, and integrity, together with
 
 MOCURRERY. 31 
 
 referred to, the foregoing extract will be found exactly 
 to tally with him. 
 
 The Abkarry or tax upon spirituous liquors, was re- 
 tained for Government, and I am sure that a great reve- 
 nue might be obtained from it under good management, 
 if there be a sufficiency of money circulating in the 
 country. 
 
 In Coxe's travels, Vol. 2d. page 203, are the follow- 
 ing statements of the revenue from the tax on liquors. 
 
 " The sale forms at present nearly one third part of 
 the Russian revenue. In every part of the empire, ex- 
 cepting the Ukraine, and the conquered provinces, the 
 crown alonp has the privilege of selling spirituous 
 liquors. The vast increase of this branch of finance, 
 will best appear from the following table : 
 
 Until 1752 ... . 540,000 
 
 Ditto 1770 . . 620,000 
 
 Ditto 1774 900,000 
 
 Ditto 1776 ... . 1,500,000 
 
 By the new lease for four years, commenced 1779, at 
 the annual rate of 1,800,0001. Of this sum Petersbourg 
 and Moscou pay 464,0001. per annum." 
 
 By Marquis Cornwallis' desire, I resigned my station 
 at Gya, and accepted a seat at the revenue board to \ 
 establish the revenue system throughout the Bengal 
 government, and to arrange the Sayr System, and 
 would have continued till all had been accomplished, 
 had not sickness compelled me to go on board a ship, 
 the physicians having declared, that I could not live if 
 I remained. To my minutes on that Board I must 
 refer for details of the Saye.
 
 32 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 a robust constitution. Mr. Munro proceeds, Section 6, 
 " though the crop should be considerably advanced 
 before the individual settlement is begun, yet it ought 
 not to be delayed boyond this period, and the sooner it 
 is then finished the better. If it were possible it would 
 be of great benefit to the inhabitants that it could be 
 effected the first time the kist becomes due, because 
 every cultivator knowing the full amount of his rent, 
 and having the whole of his crop in hand, would see at 
 once how far it was likely to answer the demand upon 
 him and would thereby be the more enabled to turn it 
 to the greatest advantage. If it was more than sufficient 
 he would lay up a part to sell late in the year. If it was 
 inadequate, he would still endeavour, by selling it only 
 by degrees in proportion to his kists, and by curtailing 
 his expences to pay his rent. But when his rent is not 
 settled till after most of the kists are collected, it is 
 sometimes higher than he expected ; he has probably 
 not been so careful and economical as he would have 
 been had he known the amount of it earlier, and there- 
 fore unable to make it good. On the other hand, while 
 he remains in this state of uncertainty, he sometimes 
 suspects without cause, that his rent will be raised 
 higher than is actually intended. He perceives that his 
 grain will not equal the demand against him, and he 
 sells it in a hurry at a low price, and absconds with 
 the produce. It is therefore of importance that the 
 individual settlement should never be longer delayed 
 than is absolutely necessary, for the same bad con- 
 sequences often ensue from uncertainty, as from a 
 higher assessment."
 
 MOCURRERY. 33 
 
 I will now give a very pleasing Extract from the 
 Letter of the resident of Benares, to demonstrate the 
 good effects of the System, dated 1793, See page 
 208. 
 
 " The present enhanced prices of sugar, is a circum- 
 stance highly favorable to the cultivator of cane, and also 
 to the Government, for it enables the farmer to pay with 
 the utmost ease not only the revenue of the cane lands, 
 also, if not the whole, at least the greatest propor- 
 tion of the rental of their barley fields, &c. Conscious 
 of this manifest advantage, and happy and secure under 
 the tenures of the permanent settlement, the cultivation 
 of the cane is rapidly increasing, and will, there is every 
 reason to believe, continue to do so, under the influence 
 and protection of a system founded on principles of the 
 wisest and most liberal policy." Here I think it my duty 
 to point out particularly to the observation of Govern- 
 ment a circumstance which will afford the greatest satis- 
 faction. In the year 1787-8, the exports of Chenee, 
 (fine sugar) amounted to only Maunds 76,074 
 
 But they increased in 1791-2 to 170,352 
 
 The Exports of Shukue (another kind of sugar) 
 
 were in 1787-8 Maunds 7,037 
 
 And increased in 1791-2, to. 13,615 
 
 The causes of this great increase are very obvious ; 
 1st, They have arisen from the entire abolition of all the 
 various, and in some degree indefinite rahdarry (transit) 
 duties, formerly collected in this Zemindary, as most 
 ably detailed in Mr. Barlow's report. 2ndly, from the 
 establishment of the regulations for the Customs which 
 were issued on the 29th March, 1788. 3rdly, from the 
 
 E
 
 \/ 
 
 34 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 It must appear extraordinary to an English farmer, 
 that a government officer is to go with full power on 
 his land and to fix an assessment, ad libitum, according 
 to his own valuation. Who but a Hindoo would com- 
 mence cultivation with such uncertainty ; he has no 
 alternative but to cultivate or starve. Mr. Munroe 
 says " that the Ryot sometimes suspects without cause 
 that his rents will be raised higher than is actually in- 
 tended." Does he mean by this that the Ryot in 
 general suspects rightly, and is only sometimes agreeably 
 deceived ? If he does so, I agree with him, for, as it 
 is usual to make Russudy Jummas, or annual increases 
 upon supposed improved cultivation, the Ryot by a 
 woeful experience in general apprehends too truly some 
 enhancement of rent, and when a collector or Tehsildar 
 does not augment his demand on the revenue of last 
 year, it is a blessing unexpected and unusual. In my 
 " Rising Resources" I have shewn that a crop having 
 been valued when almost ripe at above its probable 
 produce, the Ryot has refused to reap it at the assess- 
 meut, and has left it to rot on the ground, and stole in 
 the night what he could for his own subsistence. There 
 are two crops in the year, the Fussily and Rubbee, in 
 the latter crop is included opium, sugar, tobacco, cotton, 
 &c. ; the rate per bega on sugar in Benares and Bengal 
 is now I perceive about 3 rupees per bega ; (the third 
 of an acre) I have known four times this sum demanded, 
 and what could the poor Ryot do? to irresistible power 
 he must yield : Mr. Munro justly observes, that " there 
 is often more mischief d<jne in one year of over-assess- 
 ment, than can be remedied by seven of modera- 
 tion."
 
 MOCURRERY. 35 
 
 steady and impartial administration of justice. And 
 4thly, from the salutary effects of the settlement made 
 in 1788-9, and subsequently of the decennial one, in 
 1789-90. These settlements, by annihilating all the 
 Abwaubs (impositions and arbitrary dues) formerly 
 collected from the Ryots, by destroying the many ave- 
 nues to exactions heretofore committed upon them, 
 originating from the uncontrolled rapacity of aumils 
 annually chosen, and by inspiring that confidence which 
 naturally arises to the cultivator from his experiencing 
 the blessings of a permanent tenure ; were the happy 
 means of infusing an extraordinary spirit of industry and 
 exertion amongst the Ryots in general, and of produ- 
 cing consequences truly valuable and gratifying, such 
 as indeed reflect the highest credit on the wise and 
 liberal policy that formed and adopted the v measures 
 which occasioned them. These, it may be truly said 
 have placed the Zemindary of Benares in a situation of 
 the most flourishing prosperity, in respect both to cul- 
 tivation and commerce." 
 
 I will now quote from the very masterly report of 
 the commissioners deputed to make a permanent set- 
 tlement of the ceded territories in 1808, page 29. 162. 
 " We could not fail to observe the singular difference 
 which the application of greater capital and greater in- 
 dustry is capable of producing, in contiguous lands. 
 While the surrounding country seemed to have been 
 visited by a desolating calamity, the lands of the Rajahs, 
 Diaram, and Bugurant Sing, under every disadvantage 
 of season, were covered with crops produced by a bet- 
 ter husbandry, or by greater labor. 
 
 1G3. " When we reflect that the miseries of famine
 
 36 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 When the Ryot has to pay his kist (instalment) before 
 he cuts his crop, must he not borrow money at most 
 usurious interest ? and will not the lender augment his 
 interest, for running the risk of the Ryot being ruined 
 by Government's officers? 
 
 When a Zemindar has a permanent tenure, will he 
 not make early engagements with his Ryots, to induce 
 them to increase the best crops ? and can he not grant 
 long leases ? and will he not be moderate when seasons 
 are unfavorable, lest his Ryots should abscond? and will 
 he not be induced to dig wells and make water-courses ? 
 Mr. Munro in page 101, says, that " though the first 
 year his Ryotwarree settlement will only give an in- 
 crease of 8,557 pagodas, that in ten years, on the rents 
 paid to government, of 10,024,050 pagodas, there will 
 be an increase of about 3,000,000 pagodas." Must not 
 these increases ruin the country ? Is it not this constant 
 avarice of increase which creates apprehensions and 
 uncertainty, the bane of all improvement? Mr. Munroe 
 in the above-mentioned paragraph, says, " the highness 
 of the land rent is in this country the chief obstacle to 
 the increase of population ; a remission of rent in favor 
 of a few Zemindars or Mootahdars, would be no remedy 
 for the evil, but a remission to the Ryots, by enabling 
 them to extend their cultivation and augment the pro- 
 duce of food for their families, would in a great measure 
 do it away." 
 
 Here he does not appear to suspect that the public 
 officers employed, may avail themselves of these remis- 
 sions to benefit themselves. In page 91, he states, 
 " perhaps there is no Curnum, who in any one year
 
 MOCURRERY. 37 
 
 may be averted by such a difference of circumstances ; 
 tvhen it occurs to us, that these miseries have perhaps 
 been averted in Bengal by the lamented patriot who gave 
 the permanent settlement to that country, we feel the 
 utmost repugnance at the idea of opposing its extension 
 to our new possessions." 
 
 These commissioners however for several reasons re- 
 commended a postponement in the following and seve- 
 ral other paragraphs. " 230. We are ourselves 
 
 fully sensible of the many advantages which may be 
 expected to result from a limitation of the public de- 
 mand upon the land. We are aware that temporary 
 settlements are harrassing to the people, and that they 
 afford opportunities to fraud and abuse. It has been 
 questioned, indeed, whether a country can make any 
 considerable advances in improvemeut, ? whilst the pub- 
 lic taxes are progressively increased, and the individual 
 is not permitted to enjoy any benefit from the execution 
 of greater industry, but with every previous disposition 
 in favour of the principles of a permanent settlement. 
 We submit to your Lordship in Council our deliberate 
 and unqualified opinion, that the measure considered 
 with relation to the ceded and conquered provinces ge- 
 nerally, is at this moment unseasonable, and that any 
 premature attempt to introduce it, must necessarily be 
 attended with a material sacrifice of the public resources, 
 and may in particular cases prove injurious to the par- 
 ties themselves, whose prosperity it is the chief object 
 of the measure to secure on a durable foundation.'' 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke's minute, censuring the postpone- 
 ment of the permanent settlement, is full of powerful
 
 38 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 over gives a perfectly true statement of the cultivation 
 of his village, and it is only the fear of removal or sus- 
 pension that can make him give such accounts as are 
 tolerably accurate." Here let me ask whether a vassal 
 has any mode to defend himself from oppression, but 
 deception : cunning can only counteract superior force. 
 Why were modern Greeks proverbially fraudful, but 
 because they could only employ subterfuges to avoid 
 tyranny. In page 712, there is an account of one 
 agent's embezzlements in Cormbatore, amounting to 
 2AL4,010 pagodas; as the Company's collector was 
 sick, and died. The exactions were so excessive, that 
 they occasioned a commission to enquire into them. 
 The commissioners were Mr. T. Munro, and Mr. J. 
 Sulivan ; their report occupies from page 708, to 754. 
 They state, " on the whole, the country is in a worse 
 state than it was eight years ago, but the decay of the 
 resources is not so great, nor such as a few years of 
 attention may not restore." It would not perhaps be 
 fair to dwell on this instance of gross fraud, under a 
 collector who was incapable by sickness of attending to 
 his duties; but that such practices may occur again 
 cannot be denied, and therefore ought to claim atten- 
 tion. Let me now proceed to the conclusion of the 
 paragraph from which I before quoted : " Were it not 
 for the pressure of the laud rent, population ought to 
 advance more rapidly in India than in America, because 
 the climate is more favorable, and because there are 
 everywhere large tracts of good land uncultivated, 
 which may be ploughed at once without the labor and 
 expense of clearing away forests. As there are above
 
 MOCURERRY. 39 
 
 reasoning. I would copy the whole, but it contains 63 
 sections, and might be deemed prolix by those who do 
 not feel deeply interested. I must, however, make a 
 few short extracts. He begins by saying 
 
 (Section 2.) " I trust that the arguments which were 
 not suffered to weigh against a measure recommended 
 by wise and enlarged views of policy, but not then pro- 
 mised to our subjects, will not be allowed greater weight 
 at this momentous period, against a similar one, equally 
 recommended by liberal considerations of policy, and 
 solemnly promised by an express declaration in a legis- 
 lative Act. 
 
 3. " Government is pledged," &c. 
 
 4. The pledge which has been thus solemnly con- 
 tracted, cannot be forfeited, without such a glaring 
 violation of promise, as would indeed lose us deser- 
 vedly the confidence of the people. I do not mean to 
 say, that the obligation which has been voluntarily con- 
 tracted, is so indispensible, that no exception can on 
 any consideration be admitted. Some exceptions must 
 unavoidably be made." 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke after adverting to the arguments in 
 favor of postponing the Mocurerry Settlement, pro- 
 ceeds thus 
 
 31. " After the lapse of eighteen years, we are 
 now enabled to pronounce with certainty on the soli- 
 dity of the objections which were urged against the 
 permanent settlement of Bengal. That the distribution 
 of the assessment was not originally equal, is indispu- 
 table. That it is now equalised, will not be asserted ; 
 but experience has not shewn that the inequality of as
 
 40 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 i/ 3,000,000 of acres of this description in the ceded dis- 
 tricts, it cannot be doubted that a very considerable 
 addition will be made in twenty or twenty-five years 
 to the population, and also to the land rent, beyond the 
 /\ highest estimate which has been made of it" 
 
 Here is the burthen of the song, which causes post- 
 ponement of security from land tax exactions, which 
 keeps the people hopeless and distressed, and prevents 
 attachment to the British rule. 
 
 The following is an extract from the report of Thomas 
 Munro and J. Sulivan, Esqrs. Commissioners, deputed 
 to Cormbatore from page 712 to 754. They exhibit the 
 malpractices of a native servant under a collector, when 
 rendered by sickness incapable of attending to his duties. 
 By Cash charged for tank repairs not disbursed . 42,140 
 Ditto, Tobacco monopoly, ditto . . . 110,517 
 
 By private Collections of Nuzzerauna, or pre- 
 sents ....... 14,717 
 
 By embezzlements inpayments for Commissaries, 
 
 sheep, &c , 2,373 
 
 In another part of the commissioners Report are the 
 following items : 
 No. 1. Nazzerauna . . ... 83,590 
 
 2. Extra collections for various purposes from 
 
 the Ryots . . . ... , 02,633 
 
 2. Collections for Village Expences . . 19,694 
 
 4. Ditto, for Tank Expences, not disbursed. 1,829 
 
 5. Ditto for Provisions of Cutcherry Servants 1,386 
 
 6. Ditto for Tuckarry, or advances to Ryots 
 
 not disbursed ..... 2,212 
 
 7. Value of Sheep and Grain not delivered 
 
 by the Ryots, and not paid for to them. 3,877
 
 MOCURRERY. 4i 
 
 sessment has been productive of those evils which were 
 then foreboded, and which are now again anticipated, 
 in regard to other provinces." 
 
 " I appeal to this experience in preference to any spe- 
 culative argument. The designs of the settlement in 
 Bengal has been fully answered." 
 
 34. If a permanent settlement on a moderate scale 
 of assessment, lea\ing to the landholder the whole be- 
 nefit of future improvement, from the cultivation of 
 waste lands, was in Bengal a judicious measure which 
 justice called for, and which policy dictated, and which 
 the interests of the Company countenanced, how much 
 more is a similar measure recommended by like consi- 
 derations in regard to our new territories. It is of the 
 utmost importance, it is essential to the safety of the 
 State, to conciliate the great body of the landed pro- 
 prietors ; to attach to the British Government that 
 class of persons whose influence is most permanent and 
 most extensive ; to render it their palpable interest to 
 uphold the permanence of the British Domination ; to 
 give them a valuable stake in the present administra- 
 tion of the country. This can be in no other way ac- 
 complished, but by creating for the proprietors or pos- 
 sessors of the soil a beneficial interest, which emanating 
 from the British Government would increase with its 
 duration. The landholders enjoying their estates under 
 a moderate assessment fixed in perpetuity, are not ig- 
 norant that a change of Government would be followed 
 by the exaction of an enhanced assessment. Love of 
 novelty may blind some, dissatisfaction with the local 
 administration may indispose others ; some may be tur- 
 
 F
 
 42 
 
 RYOTWARRRE. 
 
 8. Bubcs to Tehseldars (native collectors) 
 
 for concealing rent of land . . 2,483 
 
 9. Collections of land rent, and taxes con- 
 
 cealed 47,29!) 
 
 10. Gain on exchange of coin . . . 924 
 
 11. Produce of unclaimed cattle . . 11 
 
 14. Cash taken out of the collections by the 
 
 Tehseldar 22,241 
 
 15. Produce of grass land concealed . . 11,032 
 
 These are the embezzlements of the principal native 
 agent of the Company's collector for nine or ten years. 
 I mean not to imply that such frauds are common, but 
 to demonstrate what may be done in a greater or less 
 degree, when the officer of government is sick, indo- 
 lent, or incapable, or has raised to favour a sub-agent, 
 who by flattery and mis statement may delude. When 
 Ryots complain, to an equitable, active, and firm col- 
 lector, of a Tehseldar or sub-agent, the latter, who by 
 his office, has ready access to the collector, will make 
 out a plausible story, and if it be discredited, he will 
 finish with this most weighty and irresistible argument 
 to obtain delay. " If you, Sir, now listen to the 
 Ryots, my authority will be annihilated, my collections 
 will cease, the revenue will fall in arrears, and thus you 
 insure the displeasure of your superiors. Postpone, at 
 any rate, your investigation till the season for realising 
 the Ryots instalments expires, and then I will answer 
 complaints, and prove that this is a mere conspiracy to 
 cause confusion, and to evade payments." I experienced 
 this distressing embarrassment under the farming system. 
 If the oppressing farmer were immediately stopped in
 
 MOCURRERY. 43 
 
 bulent by inclination, others may be restless by habit: 
 but the greater number sensible that they benefit by the 
 continuance of the British authority, would be little dis- 
 posed to listen to the suggestions of disaffection. If 
 on the contrary, the utmost revenue be exacted, the 
 landholders have nothing to fear, and every thing to 
 hope from a change, and the consequent impulse to 
 promote that event will be permanently added to the 
 other causes of indifference or disaffection, which have 
 been pourtrayed by the Board of Commissioners. 
 
 38. " It appears to be a very prevalent opinion that 
 the British system of administration is not generally 
 palatable to our Indian subjects. Admitting this opinion 
 to be not unfounded, it follows that while they taste 
 none but the unpalatable parts of that system, and while 
 the only boon which would be acceptable to them is 
 withheld, the landed proprietors and with them the 
 body of the people, must be more and more estranged 
 from the Government, in proportion to the expectations 
 which they had formed, and the disappointment which 
 they will have experienced. 
 
 39. " In Bengal, where the national temper is indeed 
 less turbulent, in Bahar and in Benares, where the 
 popular character and the disposition are the same as 
 in the Western provinces, the permanent settlement 
 has been long since tried with ample experience of its 
 benefits. No disaffection, no discontent arc there sup- 
 posed to prevail amongst the landholders and the pea- 
 sants. Is it credible, that the Zemindars, who have the 
 experience of a moderate and fixed assessment, should 
 be so insensible to the advantages which they enjoy, or
 
 44 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 his career, balances were inevitable ; if inquiry were 
 postponed, he would by threats or arrangements, pre- 
 vent future complaints, which also the Ryots would be 
 deterred from making, if they found their first petition 
 unredressed. In justice to the collector of Coimba- 
 tore, deceased, I have to state that the Board of 
 Revenue acquitted him of participation in his agents 
 malpractices. 
 
 The public correspondence extracted from the nu- 
 merous documents on this subject occupies 100 folio 
 pages; what must have been the trouble of the Com- 
 missioners in taking evidence and in investigating the 
 detailed accounts, and what a loss must have been sus- 
 tained by numerous officers and witnesses attending the 
 commissioners' court. 
 
 Let the company estimate how much this Zilla has 
 been injured, what loss of revenue has been sustained, 
 what expence of time and of money has been incurred. 
 Let them also regret that a Zilla has retrograded, 
 which ought to have been constantly advancing. 
 
 The Revenue Board of Fort St. George, in their 
 letter of the 29th February, 1812, state the propor- 
 tion of the government from the gross produce to be 
 55 per cent; that 45 is left for the Meerasdar, or 
 hereditary proprietor of the land and the cultivator. 
 Is not 55 the lion's share ? Let the expence of seed, 
 of ploughing, of manuring and of harvesting, and of 
 interest on sums borrowed to pay the kist of govern- 
 ment be deducted, and what will remain for the culti- 
 vator and landholder ? 
 
 In the same letter it is stated that the government's
 
 MOCURERRY. 45 
 
 so ignorant of the consequences which would follow, 
 as to desire or in any way promote a change ?" 
 
 40. " In fact no apprehensions have been entertained 
 for the public tranquillity on withdrawing the military 
 force from those provinces ; and whenever the inter- 
 nal peace of the ceded and conquered provinces shall 
 be as well secured, nearly the whole military establish- 
 ment will be available for the purposes of active warfare. 
 No measure would more essentially contribute to this 
 very desirable end, than that of a permanent settlement ; 
 and even if it be attended with some sacrifice of future 
 revenue, that would be more compensated by the 
 increased sufficiency of military strength, giving a 
 greater disposable force in war, or permitting a greater 
 reduction of expence in peace." 
 
 44. " Neither can it be admitted that relinquishment of 
 a claim to participate in the future improvement of landed 
 estates, is an entire sacrifice of the revenue. I cannot 
 think it would be unreasonable to attribute the produc- 
 tiveness of the salt revenue and the Abfaarry (a tax on 
 spirituous liquors) in Bengal and Bahar, to the increased 
 opulence of the country, ascribed to the permanent set- 
 tlement as the principal cause of its growing prospe- 
 rity." 
 
 Mr. Lumsden's able minute strongly corroborates all 
 the foregoing observations. That the export of cotton 
 and of opium, has greatly increased, may be also as- 
 signed to the same causes. These are sent to China to 
 pay for teas, which yield a great revenue to the Com- 
 pany and the Government. 
 
 By augmented products only can the natives yield
 
 4 UYOTWARREE. 
 
 proportion of the grain to be paid for by the Meeras- 
 dar, according to the selling prices of the day, is to be 
 determined in the month of January, for the Cudda- 
 poor crop, and in the month of April for the Samba- 
 pestrannum crop. The prices to be reported to the 
 Board of Revenue, and to be approved of by the Go- 
 vernment, previously to their being declared the fixed 
 prices of the year. Suppose the Government does not 
 fix the prices, what is the collector to do ? suppose the 
 cultivators object to the price fixed? suppose they assert 
 that the Government's 55, valued, exceeds the real 
 share which the crop will yield ? 
 
 It is stated that in England a third of the produce of 
 land is for the landlord, a third for the farmer, a third 
 for expences. The landlord and farmers are rich ; when 
 therefore there is a bad harvest, they can easily pay a 
 light land tax ; but in India, when there happens a 
 drought or deluge, the loss must fall principally upon 
 the Company. Even when partial failures of crops 
 ensue there must be deductions, and then the Tehsildars 
 have great opportunities to commit frauds. Tucavy also 
 must be advanced to purchase seed, and to support the 
 Ryot for the ensuing year's cultivation. 
 
 Mr. Monro has displayed uncommon zeal and exer- 
 tion, and has communicated much useful information; he 
 has also very humanely recommended a reduction of 25 
 per cent, from Government's share of the gross produce. 
 Any system under such abilities, activity, and integrity, 
 would succeed for a time, and might afford an increase 
 of revenue by great encouragement to the Ryots, by a 
 confiding Government allowing him to make advances.
 
 MOCURERRY. 47 
 
 annual tributes, or can the territory prove beneficial to 
 Great Britain." 
 
 In the selection of papers above mentioned, there is 
 a most valuable letter from Bengal signed Lord Minto, 
 N. B. Edmonstone, and my quondam highly esteemed 
 assistant, A. Setton. It would gratify me to copy the 
 whole, from page 179 to 104. It is with reluctance I 
 confine myself to short extracts. 
 
 " We maintain that no scheme can be devised, by 
 which a variable land tax shall not operate as a discou- 
 ragement to agriculture ; certainly not in opposition to 
 Dr. Adam Smith, but in perfect concurrence with his 
 sentiments, viz. " the discouragement which a variable 
 land-tax might give to the improvement of the land, 
 seems to be the most important objection to it. The land- 
 lord would certainly be less disposed to improve when 
 the sovereign, who contributes nothing to the expense, 
 was to share in the profit of the improTement." 
 
 " No proposition can be more self-evident, than that 
 the industry and capital employed by landholders in the 
 improvement'of their estates, that is in the general ame- 
 lioration of the country, will be proportioned to the 
 profits, which the application of such industry and capi- 
 tal may be expected to afford to them or their descend- 
 ants. To attempt therefore to increase the public land 
 revenue, in proportion to such improvements, must 
 under any circumstances operate as a great check, if not 
 absolute bar, to the accomplishment of this important 
 abject." 
 
 The decrease of the revenue is there shewn of Ben- 
 gal, Bahar, and Orissa, from 1783-4 to 1792, and it*
 
 48 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 My objection is that it depends for success on a multitude 
 of agents, all of whom must be endowed with almost 
 supernatural powers, and virtues, as the main spring of 
 all human prosperity, self interest, is discarded. 
 
 Mr. Thackery in his letter of the 16th October, 1817, 
 , gives a candid description of the difficulties and results 
 of the existing Ryotwarree System. " The difficulty of 
 keeping up the revenue will be more felt every year, 
 as the power of the revenue officer declines ; if we do 
 not come to some fair and permanent terms, the Ryots 
 will try by frauds, falsehoods, petitions, and prosecutions, 
 to evade the fair as well as the unfair demand. The 
 revenue officers must try by the patronage, influence, 
 and means, still left them, to keep up the revenue, or 
 the Government will lose a great deal of fair revenue. 
 The bad consequences of the struggle must be evident; 
 it has produced bad consequences already. The struggle 
 hurts the moral character of the people ; it would be 
 better to give up some revenue to induce the Ryots to 
 come to permanent terms. If the annual pottah, (which 
 he considers an acknowledgment from the highest au- 
 thority of his at least temporary right,) affords him 
 encouragement/ how much more interest would a per- 
 manent pottah give ? There is no doubt of the great 
 advantage of some permanent settlement, many of its 
 practicability. Here the people if not impoverished, 
 are debased and suspicious. -There have been so many 
 changes and monopolies, so much Circar interference, 
 so many exactions and restrictions, individuals have so 
 long and often abused the name and authority of the state, 
 that the people seem to have lost all sense of truth and
 
 MOCURERRY. 49 
 
 increase since ; viz. the revenue declined in the first 
 period from 284,45,572 to 264,16,819, and were in 
 1811-12, 271,96,826. These gentlemen conclude as 
 follows : 
 
 " The public revenue may be collected without any 
 material defalcation, and some partial improvements 
 may even be effected under the restrictions which have 
 been or may be established, in regard to the term of 
 the settlement. But if it be our wish to effect those 
 rapid improvements in the agricultural state of the 
 country, which have of late years taken place in Ben- 
 gal ; to turn the people from their refractory habits, 
 which are still too prevalent among them, to the culti- 
 vation of the arts of peace and of productive industry ; 
 to infuse into the landholders a warm and zealous at- 
 tachment to the government, founded on the solid 
 basis of their own interests, and finally to ameliorate 
 generally the condition of the natives, it is our firm 
 conviction, that no arrangement or measure will tend 
 so speedily and effectually to the accomplishment of 
 those important objects, as the establishment of a per- 
 manent settlement." 
 
 MINTO, 
 
 N. B. EDMONSTONE, 
 
 ARCH. SETON. 
 
 Fort William, 
 \lth July, 1813. 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke, in a minute which follows this able 
 Letter, page 196, states, that the customs which at the 
 time of their abolition were assessed at eleven lacks, 
 
 G
 
 50 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 justice. After so many years of peace and plenty, it is 
 lamentable to find the revenue less secure, the people 
 less respectable, and perhaps intelligent, the servants 
 less to be depended on, and private rights not more 
 certain and secure than when the province first came 
 under the Company's government. No other improve- 
 ments are to be observed, than those resulting from the 
 situation of the province, and military reputation of the 
 Government, which have protected it from foreign in- 
 vasion, and poligar pillage. The system here has been 
 to make the Cutcherry of the collector the focus of all 
 business, the depository of all power, the source of all 
 influence, the arbiter of the fortunes of the landed pro- 
 prietors, the comptroller-general of agriculture and 
 commerce. The collector not only regulates whether 
 the rent should be paid, but whether half or quarter rent. 
 The most intelligent and active collector will make not 
 unfrequent mistakes, but where from whatever cause he 
 neglects his duties, the worst abuses follow. It gets 
 more difficult every day to carry on the present system 
 of temporary expediency, and the Government may 
 lose more by the struggle between the revenue officers 
 and the Ryots, than by giving up what may be necessary 
 to induce them to come to some permanent terms." 
 
 " The revenue officers must not give up the just rights 
 of the Government, they act at their peril, and must be 
 considered the stewards of a great landlord, rather than 
 formerly, as the representatives of the Government; 
 all these difficulties were known when the village leases 
 were introduced."
 
 MOCURERRY. 51 
 
 (100,000) yielded since their establishment in 1811-12, 
 rupees 16,68,336. 
 
 " The Abkaree, or tax on spirituous Jj)3J*2sJji 1791, 
 when separated from the land revenue, only 34,602 
 yielded in the years 1812-13, the sum of 834,695, ex- 
 hibiting an increase of eight lacs. 
 
 " In the Salt Department, a still greater increase has 
 been effected, viz. The amount collected in 1789-90, 
 rupees 65,03,778; and in 1811-12, 1,17,71,802. 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke will not " take credit for a similar 
 encrease in the net revenue of the opium, as the whole of 
 this revenue is levied on foreign consumption, but 
 surely if the Mocurrerydar, by encouraging the en- 
 creased cultivation of opium, enables the Company to 
 sell a quantity greatly augmented, their profit should be 
 attributed to the security and encouragement given by 
 permanent settlements. 
 
 The duty on stamps is then mentioned, but that is 
 not considerable, nor in his opinion likely to become so. 
 
 " The aggregate of all these greatly exceed what can 
 be considered to have been foregone of land revenue." 
 
 It is with much gratification I read Mr. Colebrooke's 
 statement of " the encreased expenditure of Land- 
 holders enjoying augmented incomes which do not 
 escape taxation ; the encrease of revenue from salt, 
 abkarree, &c. must be principally attributed to the dif- 
 fusion of wealth and general improvement of the con- 
 dition of the people, which have been the result of the 
 permanent settlement and concomitant arrangements." 
 
 " Neither does it appear unreasonable to expect that 
 such a change in the habits of the opulent part of the
 
 52 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 Mr. Sulivan in some of his reports, particularly para- 
 graph 42, of his Letter of the 7th September, 1816, 
 seems anxious to introduce some permanent system. 
 
 That an idea may be formed of the vast mass of 
 details which must be accumulated by Ryotwarree 
 Settlement, I refer to the following extract from the 
 selection of papers, page 898. " In Canara there are 
 at present no less than 43,366 persons paying land re- 
 venue direct to the officers of Government, and as the 
 average collections from each are only eleven pagodas, 
 thirty-seven fanams, and fifty-live cash (lip. 37f. 55c.) 
 per annum, it is evident the revenue is there realized in 
 great, though perhaps not in quite so much detail as in 
 Malabar." 
 
 The following is an extract from Sir John Malcolm, 
 who explains the management of Mahratta rulers. "The 
 best and most popular mode of realising the revenue of 
 central India, is by granting leases of ten, twenty, or 
 thirty years, to respectable men. The worst and most 
 dreaded is that which prevails (particularly in Scindias 
 districts) of annual changes of managers and renters : 
 such take no interest in the prosperity of the country, 
 and commit every excess to make up the sum they re- 
 quire. But there is still, except in very extreme cases, 
 under all this mismanagement, not nearly so much ruin 
 and general distress as might be supposed. This can 
 only result from the Government, with all its arbitrary 
 acts, being defrauded by a combination, which extends 
 from the prime minister to the poorest cultivator of the 
 smallest district. The uncertainty of station makes all 
 tremble at the prospect of proved guilt ; and hence that
 
 MOCURRERY. 53 
 
 community may take place, as will induce a more 
 general consumption of luxuries, &c. After taxing 
 tobacco to the utmost, an article of unusual consump- 
 tion, market duties, &c. may be renewed, should the 
 necessities of government absolutely require an aug- 
 mentation of revenue, for which provision cannot be 
 made by other taxes." 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke, after this, expresses regret at the 
 disappointment of the Zemindars of the ceded and 
 conquered provinces, and justly observes, " the disap- 
 pointment of this expectation will be imputed by them 
 to breach of faith, in withholding the fulfilment of a pro- 
 mise, and declining to give effect to rights conferred 
 on them by the British government. The unequal 
 treatment in this respect received by them, of which ' 
 they will be continually reminded, by comparison with 
 the condition of their more fortunate neighbours in the 
 lower provinces, will rankle in their minds : less grate- 
 ful for benefits received and for the advantages of 
 peace and protection enjoyed by them, than resentful 
 for what is withheld, they will remain dissatisfied and 
 disaffected" 
 
 " If we would secure the attachment of the great 
 body of the landholders, (and in securing their attach- 
 ment we command that of the whole peasantry and mass 
 of population influenced by them) we must give them a 
 permanent interest in upholding our government. 
 They must have nothing to hope, and every thing to 
 fear from change. They are a people bold, and by 
 disposition turbulent ; not to be conciliated solely by 
 protection in the enjoyment of peace of which they are
 
 64 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 union between heads of villages, renters, collectors, and 
 Government officers, which enables the lowest to keep 
 the highest in check. The balance against a village is 
 often cancelled hy a collector, to prevent the Potail and 
 head cultivators from preferring a complaint or exposing 
 some concealed items of revenue ; and the collector in 
 his turn secures his office for years by being able to 
 prove fabricated accounts in the office of the Furnavese, 
 or by having given a bribe to a minister." 
 
 The same gentleman in an appendix, gives the fol- 
 lowing statement of demands from cultivators : 
 
 1. Burar (or Ayeen pomma) fixed revenue. 
 
 2. Seyt, an assessment for the payment of the salaries 
 
 of Tehsildars, or the Rawul's, or Prince's retainers. 
 
 3. Koowur Sukrie, for the expeuces of the Koowur's 
 
 eldest son, (Sukrie means the first, or morning meal.) 
 
 4. Kaamdar Sukrie, 10 per cent, for the expences of the 
 
 Kaamdar, or minister. 
 
 5. Lawgut Karcoon, for the Government's officers. 
 
 6. Oodra, a collection originally intended for the pay- 
 
 ment of certain troops. 
 
 7. Rhatil Ghora, for feeding the Kharwal's horses. 
 
 8. Rhattee Kulal, a trifling tax on liquor-shops. 
 
 9. Pandur Tuchack, for the expences of the great 
 
 Nowbut, or drum-beater. 
 
 10. Pourah Burar, for the provision of a Buffalo for 
 
 sacrifices at the Dusserch. 
 
 11. Sheverat, for charges of the festival in honor of Seva, 
 
 in the month of Megh. 
 
 12. Sereephal, for the supply of cocoa nuts during the 
 
 Hooly, it being usual for the Kawul to distribute 
 that fruit to the Thakoors, Zemindars of villages,&c.
 
 MOCTJRRERY. 55 
 
 even impatient, but by the strict fulfilment of the 
 word of government to their entire conviction of its 
 good faith, and by giving them a deep and vital interest 
 in its stability." 
 
 With reluctance I am compelled, to avoid prolixity, 
 to omit much valuable matter in this statesmanlike 
 minute, wherein he says, that " the present Mocurerry / 
 landholders in Bengal and Bahar, are opulent and pros- \ 
 perous ; increase of agriculture has proceeded with a ] 
 rapidity surpassing expectation, and, in the greatest i 
 part of the country, has already reached its limit, unless * 
 it receive new impulses from the introduction of im- 
 proved modes of husbandry." 
 
 Let me here, whilst it is in my memory, recommend, 
 that all the instruments of agriculture lately invented 
 in Europe should be sent out to the several presidencies 
 in India, and that each of them should have a farm 
 similar to that of Rambouliet established by Napoleon 
 for the instruction of the cultivators. This has ren- 
 dered much useful exemplary information, " fas est et 
 ab hoste doceri." It is even of importance, in a political 
 view, to direct the attention of the natives to these 
 laudable pursuits, and to produce conciliatory corres- 
 pondences, as farmers very rarely have the spirit of 
 monopoly to conceal improvements. 
 
 Although I may have relied too much upon the 
 inclination of those who may peruse these extracts, 
 yet I cannot refrain from giving the following ex- 
 tracts from Lord Moira's valuable minute dated 21st 
 September, 1815, page 403 to 435, section 161. 
 
 161. " The advantage to the country is, however,
 
 56 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 13. Waujah,forthe maintenance of the Eawab's wardrobe. 
 
 14. Sir Pitosa, for the maintenance of the Ranee's ditto. 
 
 15. Paundoo, for the wages of the attendants of the 
 
 Rawul's horses. 
 
 16. Ghora Churahee, a tax levied under the head of 
 
 extra charges; for men who have been sent to 
 bring home the Rawul's horses from the villages 
 where they were sent to graze when out of condition. 
 
 17. Chara, for the supply of grass for the horses. 
 
 18. Dalalee, or tax paid by the Dulal's or broker's 
 
 agents between purchasers and sellers. 
 
 19. Kussera, a tax on workmen in brass and copper. 
 
 20. Dep Ghur, a tax paid by manufacturers in leather, 
 
 for all shields, oil vessels, &c. 
 
 21. Bhurawet, a tax paid by manufacturers of coarser 
 
 ornaments for the legs and arms of women of the 
 
 lower orders. 
 
 To all of the above was added on the invasion of the 
 M ahrattta armies 
 
 Kurnee, for the payment of a tribute to a foreign 
 
 power, to which all descriptions of Inhabitants were 
 
 obliged to contribute." 
 
 It is impossible to particularize the variety of contri- 
 butions, as the Rajah's Zemindars or Tehsildars were 
 accustomed to introduce impositions as opportunities 
 offered. Sir John Malcolm states, " In 1805, when 
 Jusurunt Row Holcar was m pursuit of Lieut. Colonel 
 Morton's corps, the death of numbers of his bullocks 
 made him levy one bullock each from many villages. 
 The tax did not cease with the emergency, but it was 
 commuted for money, and ten rupees are still paid by 
 each of these villages."
 
 MOCURRERY. 57 
 
 best judged of by its effects. There is at present little 
 or no emigration of the agricultural class : indeed it is 
 found that proprietors before driven into exile, or into 
 the search of other means of livelihood, such as military 
 service, daily come to reclaim the lands they had been 
 obliged to abandon, in the certainty that they now have 
 ceased to be unprofitable." 
 
 162. " The wages of agricultural labour are much 
 higher than they used to be, which is solely attributable 
 to the increased demand for labour of this description- 
 The more valuable articles of produce are also culti- 
 vated with much more spirit ; and the most astonishing 
 efforts are daily made to conquer natural defects of 
 soil, as well as to preclude the evils of casual calamity 
 of season." 
 
 163. " There can be no doubt, indeed, that the 
 produce and the profits of agriculture have been 
 increased in a very surprising degree, since the country 
 fell under our administration. The comparative pros- 
 perity of the several cities may form a good criterion 
 of this, and the rapidity with which they are increasing, 
 both in size and population, is scarcely credible." 
 
 164. " The abolition of those arbitrary sayer imposts 
 which each Zemindar conceived himself entitled to 
 levy on all goods that entered his domain, has now 
 left open to every proprietor a free market for all his 
 produce, to which it may be carried without the fear of 
 violence or exaction in the transport." 
 
 165. " The beneficial system on which the custom 
 and town duties are now collected here, at the same 
 time, left the rates of the market free from the opera- 
 
 H
 
 58 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 These Mamooly or customary cesses were the sources 
 of endless disputes and of great frauds, and the collector 
 or judge often found it impossible to adjust them. 
 When I made the Mocurrery Settlement, I prohibited 
 the introduction of the vague word Mamooly, (customary) 
 into pottahs or leases, and proclaimed that the Zemin- 
 dars should only have a claim for the specific sum or 
 sums expressed in the pottah, and no more on any pre- 
 tence. If by negligence he omitted, or if he pretended 
 to have omitted any due, he must abide by the loss* 
 This was a great security to the Ryot, and had the best 
 of effects. Under a Ryotwarree Settlement, the Teh- 
 sildar will always endeavour to exact these cesses to 
 make up for any deficiences in the collections, if not for 
 his own emolument. Sir John Malcolm says, that irri- 
 gated lands which produce good crops are always rented 
 for 6, 8, or 10 rupees per bega, a bega being about the 
 third of an acre ; thus an acre pays 30 rupees, at least 
 31. sterling. If opium rises in price, the Tehsildar will 
 contrive (having the power) to benefit the Govern- 
 ment by an increase. 
 
 Mr. Mill in his 1st vol. has a very sensible chapter 
 on taxes, which concludes with the following just ob- 
 servations : " An expensive mode of raising the taxes 
 is the natural effect of a rude state of society. We are 
 informed by Sully, that the receipt into the French 
 Exchequer in the year 1598, was only 30,000,000 of 
 French money, whilst the sum dragged out of the 
 pockets of the people was 150,000,000. The thing 
 appeared incredible, says the statesman, but by the 
 due degree of labour, I made the truth of it certain.
 
 MOCURRERY. 69 
 
 lion of any local circumstances, and solely regulated by 
 the broad commercial interests of the whole of India. 
 In consequence of these facilities, commercial capital 
 and enterprise have been turned towards the land, and 
 an activity has been infused, of which every class re- 
 ceives the benefit." 
 
 166. " The display of wealth is no longer avoided 
 as dangerous ; but perhaps the most direct and positive 
 advantage to the landed interest which has resulted 
 from our occupation of the country is the disconti- 
 nuance of the arbitrary practice of quartering troops on 
 districts where they were to be provided gratis, in 
 addition to the public dues of government, as well as 
 the requisition of free gifts of several descriptions, 
 besides the obligations gratuitously to furnish supplies, 
 labourers, artificers, and carriage of every sort, when- 
 ever circumstances might bring a man in power or a 
 body of troops to the neighbourhood of a village. The 
 occasions for demands of this description were unli- 
 mited, and payment never was offered, nor could it be 
 with safety." 
 
 Justice, humanity, and wisdom united, dictate that, of 
 the eighty or hundred millions of natives whom we 
 have subjugated, some should enjoy annual affluence 
 and security of possession. We have deprived them of 
 all civil and military offices; we have monopolized 
 several articles of commerce ; and if we oust at one 
 fell swoop all the Zemindars, and collect from the 
 mere cultivators according to their crops, what security 
 will remain to them, what hope will be left them, con- 
 sequently what common interest can attach them to us ?
 
 60 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 The proportion was doubtless greater in Hiudostan." 
 Receiving the taxes in kind was a practice which en- 
 sured a prodigious expence and a waste by which nobody 
 gained. Scarcely any other mode seems to be known 
 to the Hindoos in the times of their ancient institutions. 
 By aiming at the receipts of a prescribed portion of the 
 crop of each year, and with a very imperfect distinction 
 of the lands of different powers, the Hindoos incurred 
 most of the evils which a bad method of raising a tax 
 is liable to produce. They rendered the amount of the 
 tax always uncertain, and its pressure very unequal; 
 they rendered necessary a perfect host of tax-gatherers 
 and opened a boundless inlet to partiality and oppression 
 on the one hand, to fraud and mendacity on the other." 
 In the same vol. page 272, Mr. Mill says "The rate 
 established in the ancient ordinances, has been regarded 
 as evidence of mild taxation, that is of good government. 
 It only proves that agriculture was in its earliest and 
 most unproductive state, and though it paid little, it 
 could not afford to pay any more. We may assume it 
 as a principle in which there is no room for mistake, that 
 a Government constituted and circumstanced as that 
 of the Hindoos, had only one limit to its exactions ; 
 the non-existence of any further to take. Another 
 thing is certain, that under any state of cultivation but 
 the very worst, if the whole, except a sixth of the pro- 
 duce of a soil, as rich as that of Hindostan, had been 
 left with the cultivator, he must have had the means of 
 acquiring wealth, and of attaining rank and consequence, 
 but these it is well ascertained, the Ryots in India never 
 enjoyed.
 
 MOCURRERY. 61 
 
 May they not say that their Mahometan conquerors 
 were less injurious to them ; for, as they remained all 
 their lives amongst them, the wealth they obtained 
 they spent amongst them, and they had no foreign 
 tribute to pay. The Mahometans also granted rent- 
 free lands, and were indulgent to Zemindars to whom 
 they might be partial. Under our government the 
 natives complain of general impoverishment. We ought 
 to be particularly studious It&r to encourage produc- 
 tions from the land, and our best policy is how, by 
 lightening the land tax, we can excite industry and 
 cause food and raw materials. By the Mocurrery 
 system the land revenue only is limited, and every 
 other source of revenue is expressly reserved for the 
 Company. If the Company were to examine their 
 records, and to estimate the expences and losses they 
 have incurred by causing and suppressing the rebellions 
 of Zemindars, they would be at once convinced of the 
 short-sightedness of the policy which would virtually 
 declare themselves lords of the soil, to the exclusion of 
 the Zemindars, Taloohdars, and proprietors of various 
 denominations. A foreign sovereign ought to be 
 particularly studious how to encourage articles for 
 exportation, that specie, the life-blood of the country, 
 may not be withdrawn. 
 
 Mr. Russel, in the Hydrabad papers, assigns as his 
 reasons for re-establishing Kona Row, a principal 
 Zemindar, that he had been in rebellion thirty years, and 
 that his Ryots attached to him were thereby withdrawn 
 from cultivation, and the Government was exposed to 
 great expense and disquietude by maintaining an army ;
 
 02 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 Mr. Mill approves of the humane and honorable anx- 
 iety, lest the happiness of the most numerous class of 
 the population should be sacrificed, if the sovereign 
 were acknowledged as owner of the soil. This acknow- 
 ledgment he observes, would be no bar to a preferable 
 arrangement, " since the sovereign can have a right to 
 nothing which is injurious to the people." 
 
 I must confess that I deprecate distant retrospects 
 about rights to the soil, because the further we go back 
 from present civilization, the more we discover ignorance 
 and barbarity. 
 
 A grant of land was discovered among the ruins of 
 Monghief, translated by Mr. Wilkins, Asiatic Re- 
 searches, vol. 1, page 123, 23 years before Christ. It 
 would have been strange indeed if Rajahs had not given 
 away lands to their relations, faithful servants, religious 
 establishments, &c.; these grants however in general 
 are perpetual donations of land, exempt from all claims 
 of Government, and are therefore very objectionable, 
 for all land ought to contribute a portion of its produce 
 for protection enjoyed. 
 
 When the Mahomedans conquered Ilindostan, they 
 sometimes turned out Rajahs, and allowed them lands 
 for separate maintenance, called Netikar. When also 
 with a view to obtain accurate knowledge of the reve- 
 nues, they turned out the Zemindars and formed Ryot- 
 warree collections, they either allowed land or a per 
 centage in money. The officers to keep accounts, such 
 as Canongoes, were always continued, being real offi- 
 cers having duties to perform. Those who declare the 
 sovereign the lord of the soil, because he was accustomed
 
 MOCURRERY. 63 
 
 that Kona Row, when he discharged his men, gave to 
 each thirty-three rupees for seed, and a plough and a 
 pair of bullocks : and thus, those became productive 
 who were before destructive. 
 
 When a principal Zemindar dies, his children will 
 obtain portions of the estate, and thus the power of the 
 great Rajahs, who resemble feudal chiefs, will be gra- 
 dually frittered away by justice, and all the children 
 will enjoy separate estates, which may, by improve- 
 ment, yield perhaps nearly as much net income as their 
 father received, in distracted times, from the whole 
 Zemindarry. 
 
 Were the Company now to attempt a Ryotwarree 
 system in the territory of a powerful hill chief, he 
 would immediately rebel ; but upon his decease, his 
 heirs will naturally apply for a division into separate 
 Mocurrery for each. This is a consideration which 
 ought to have great weight when applied to our frontier 
 conquered territories. In pages 810 to 837 there are 
 complete satisfactory replies to seventeen questions 
 respecting hereditary proprietory rights, which ought 
 to remove all doubts. 
 
 On the preferability of a Mocurrery to a Ryotwarree 
 settlement, 1 will now subjoin extracts from a most 
 valuable letter from the Revenue Board of Fort St. 
 George, which ought also, in my opinion, to set that 
 question at rest ; see page 65. 
 
 5. " Your honourable court have been pleased to 
 signify to us your directions, that in all the provinces 
 that might be unsettled, the principle of the Ryot- 
 warree system should be acted upon,&c. Deeming if,
 
 04 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 to demand what he pleased, are of course compelled to 
 call the Zemindars officers, but surely he is a droll 
 officer who often engages to pay revenue on his own 
 Zemindary ; and when not engaged with, receives a 
 share of the income from the land. In a semi-barbarous 
 state before manufactures and commerce are introduced, 
 chieftains of course paid their officers, soldiers, and ser- 
 vants from the land. This could be the only revenue, 
 as a people grow rich, or in other words, when a plenty 
 of money is in circulation, other sources of revenue are 
 introduced. The Rajahs formerly were almost always 
 waging war with one another, and their Ryots were at 
 once cultivators and soldiers. A view of India with 
 its numerous forts shews this state of society ; the Ryots 
 had only huts, and during wars always fled for protec- 
 tion to the Zemindars' forts. The Company's records 
 are full of the rebellions of Zemindars, drven thereto 
 by exactions, and of the attachment (I might say devo- 
 tion) of the Ryots to their old hereditary proprietors. 
 Gratitude to them, is the great virtue of a Ryot, and the 
 word for ingratitude is " nimmuck heraum' false to 
 those whose salt any one has eat. Patriotism was un- 
 known, and there is no word in the Asiatic language 
 synonimous with it. It received its birth under repub- 
 lican governments, and has been properly preserved 
 under limited monarchies. 
 
 With a desire to be explicit, I fear that tediousness 
 may be imputed to me, but as it is all important to de- 
 cide for ever the question whether there an; Zemindars 
 or landlords in India, I felt it incumbent upon me to 
 touch upon a subject which heretofore claimed so much
 
 MOCURRERY. 65 
 
 as we do, to be indispensably necessary that a perma- 
 nent settlement of the land revenue should take place, 
 we are led by your Honourable Court's despatch to con- 
 sider, &c. 
 
 6. " Every writing of Colonel Monro's is entitled 
 to attention. His vigorous and comprehensive under- 
 standing ; the range which his mind takes through the 
 whole science of political economy ; the simplicity and 
 clearness with which all his ideas are unfolded ; his 
 long and extensive experience, and his uniform success, . 
 rank him high as an authority in all matters relating to 
 the revenues of India. Independently of the general 
 interest excited by the character of its author, his 
 paper dated the 15th August, 1807, claims notice, as 
 containing the only project of a Ryotwarree permanent 
 settlement. To that paper your Honourable Court's 
 despatch makes a marked reference, and we accord- 
 ingly feel ourselves at liberty to regard the project 
 which it contains as the permanent settlement which 
 your Honourable Court would wish to introduce. In 
 speaking of the Ryotwarree System, we therefore beg, 
 for the sake of accuracy, to be understood to mean the 
 system recommended in Colonel Monro's letter of the 
 15th August, 1807. 
 
 7. " The first objection to such a system is its 
 impracticability. Colonel Monro does indeed propose 
 to grant a remission generally of 25, and in particular 
 cases, of 33 per cent, on the survey assessment ; but 
 the exigencies of the government put such a remission 
 entirely out of the question. The success of that or of 
 any other system, would no doubt be materially pro-
 
 60 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 of attention. It is said of King James, that on behold- 
 ing a fine estate, he exclaimed " what a braw rebel the 
 owner would make ;" a similar disposition actuated 
 potentates in Asia ; now let me ask were the Scottish 
 chiefs landlords, or officers of the government? because 
 compelled to pay tributes, and because sometimes de- 
 prived of their authority and possessions by one more 
 powerful, had they therefore no rights? 
 
 The East India Company have acknowledged Zemin- 
 dary rights ever since their acquisition of the Dewannee, 
 and as it is too late now to annihilate them, I will without 
 further preface, take notice of Mr. Mill's argument for 
 preferring the Ryotwarree System: candour makes me 
 transcribe his description of a Zemindar. 
 
 " The Zemindar had some of the attributes of a 
 land-holder, he collected the rents of a particular dis- 
 trict, he governed the cultivators of a district, lived in 
 comparative splendor, and his son succeeded him 
 When he died. The Zemindars therefore, it was in- 
 ferred, were the proprietors of the soil, the landed 
 nobility and gentry of India. It ivas not considered 
 that the Zemindars, though they collected the rents, 
 did not keep them, but paid them all away with a small 
 deduction to the Government." 
 
 He proceeds to say, " The English were actuated 
 not only by an enlightened, but by a very generous 
 policy, when they resolved to create in favor of indi- 
 viduals a permanent prosperity in the soil, as conducive 
 at once to the increase of its produce and the happiness 
 of the people. They were under the influence of 
 prejudices in the mode of carrying their design into 
 
 A
 
 MOCURRERY. 67 
 
 moted by a remission ; for it is in vain to disguise the 
 truth, that the prosperity of the country is seriously de- 
 pressed by the public burthens. The assessment is 
 heavier than the country can bear without injury. It 
 has hitherto been exacted by resorting to all the expe- 
 dients within the reach of the revenue officers ; it can- 
 not be permanently secured, unless the proportion 
 which it bears to the produce of the country be dimi- 
 nished ; and this is the grand effect, which it is hoped 
 a permanent settlement may be so contrived as to pro- 
 duce, without any large remission of the amount of 
 revenue at present collected, &c. Colonel Monro, in 
 his report of the 25th August, 1805, states, that if the 
 Ryots were freed from every species of restraint, they; 
 would probably throw up one fourth part of the land ; 
 under cultivation, from inability to cultivate their pro- \ 
 perty. Since the date of that report, the Ryots have | 
 been freed from every species of restraint : so that 
 under a Ryotwarree System, whether annual or per- 
 manent, there would, according to the judgment formed 
 
 by Colonel Monro, be a reduction of one fourth part of 
 
 ,, 
 
 the revenue. 
 
 8. " If that system must be restored, the alternative 
 will be between an immediate, though not a permanent, 
 reduction of revenue, and the use of compulsory means 
 to collect the present revenue without reduction. 
 
 9. " It was to avoid the necessity of either of these 
 means, that the government judged it indispensable to 
 abandon the Ryotwarree System ; and it was believed, 
 that the Village System, which was substituted for it, 
 independently of its other advantages, had this in its
 
 68 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 execution. Full of the aristocratical ideas of modern 
 Europe, the aristocratical person now at the head of 
 the Government, avowed his intention of establishing 
 an aristocracy on the European model; and he was 
 well aware that the union at home of statesmen and 
 directors, whom he obeyed, was under the influence of 
 similar propensities." Again, in another paragraph, 
 Mr. Mill says, " If the aristocracy was provided for, 
 it appears to have been thought that every thing else 
 would provide for itself." 
 
 I cannot conceive how an aristocracy can be created, 
 without giving away titles, and by taking away from 
 Zemindars the power originally exercised of collecting 
 transit duties, and all kinds of impositions, and of 
 deciding in civil cases. It was a resumption of power 
 by the Sovereign, and only a limitation of demand from 
 the Zemindar for the support of the Government. 
 When to take away shall become synonimous with the 
 word give, then will the permanent settlement be an aris- 
 tocratical measure. Mr. Mill seems to have imbibed a 
 very unfavorable opinion of our British landlords ; he 
 says, " If the gentlemen of England will sacrifice im- 
 provement to the petty portion of arbitrary power which 
 the laws of England allow them to exercise over tenants 
 at will, what must we not expect from the Zemindars of 
 Hindostan, with minds nurtured to habits of oppression? 
 It is not because in England we have a landed aristo- 
 cracy, that our agriculture has improved, but because 
 the laws of England afford to the cultivator protection 
 against his lord. It is the immediate cultivators who 
 have increased so wonderfully the produce of the land
 
 MOCTJRRERY. H9 
 
 favour, that it might, without any considerable abate- 
 ment of revenue, be introduced and acted upon with 
 the free and cordial consent of the people, &c. 
 
 10. " But even if a Ryotwarree settlement had 
 been practicable without a reduction of revenue ill 
 suited to the exigencies of the governtment, and 
 without the former system of complete constraint upon 
 the labour and locality of the Ryots, still the inquisitorial / 
 interference which it requires the revenue officers to 
 exercise over the property of the Ryots in the soil, and \ 
 every thing relating to the management of the pro- 
 perty, must have rendered it a perpetual engine of fraud 
 and oppression." 
 
 Here the Board particularize their objections, and 
 then come to the following conclusions: 
 
 24. " But after all, we attach much less importance 
 to the point than your Honorable Court has done. The 
 grand difference between the view at present taken in 
 England regarding Indian land revenue, and that taken 
 here, seems to be that in England the fear is that the 
 public demands upon the resources of India may not 
 keep pace with its prosperity ; whilst here the universal 
 sentiment, we believe, without any exception whatever, 
 is, that the prosperity of the country is so much depressed 
 by the public demands, that without the most liberal 
 and judicious management, there is more danger of its 
 resources declining, than room to hope for their speedy 
 increase. This is a sentiment which we cannot too 
 strongly convey to your Honorable Court. It is ad- 
 dressed to your wisdom, to your sense of justice, to 
 your humanity : it concerns the successful adminis-
 
 70 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 in England, not only without assistance from the pro- 
 prietors, but often in spite of them." 
 
 I know not what "the Cooks, the Curuens, and other 
 great agriculturists will think of this anathema. Mr. 
 Mill afterwards declaims against ignorance, and large 
 possessions. To the presidents and members of agri- 
 cultural societies, and to experience, I appeal for a 
 refutation of this reasoning. 
 
 If capitals be required to give efficacy to the natural 
 stimulus of self-interest, which the Father of all has 
 implanted in the human breast ; if a good education be 
 the means to obtain knowledge applicable to the soil, 
 surely independance and fortune are requisite to make 
 improvements. Arthur Young attributes the superior 
 production of English estates over those of France and 
 other countries, to the greater capital employed in hus- 
 bandry. Wherever land-holders do not improve their 
 estates, there will befound some counteracting despotism, 
 some withering oppressive powers and privileges. In 
 the United States public land is sold, that proprietors 
 may be created ; but the advocates for a Ryotwarree 
 System are for purchasing Zemindary rights, that the 
 mere Ryot may be depended upon, and that there may 
 be only European collectors, native Tehsildars, and 
 other agents, constantly teazing the cultivators, and 
 levying from those Ryots who improve their lands, the 
 deficiences of those who neglect them. 
 
 I must refer to the 5th vol. title " Lord Cornwallis' 
 Revenue Reform," for a full perusal of Mr. Mill's ob- 
 servations. I should be sorry to misrepresent them. 
 
 I little expected when I was zealously putting in 
 practice my Mocurrery System, that an aristocratical
 
 MOCURRERY. 71 
 
 tration of your Government, no less than the welfare 
 
 > 
 
 and happiness of a numerous population, and the pros- 
 perity of an extensive country, favored by nature, pro- 
 tected from internal commotion and foreign assault, 
 and requiring only moderation in the demands of Go- 
 vernment upon its resources, to render it rich and 
 flourishing. Compared with the attainment of these 
 great ends, of how little value appears every sacrifice 
 which can be made for them ? But when it is considered 
 that it may be found the best means of rendering the 
 waste lands productive to include them in a permanent 
 settlement, that perhaps no other means might be ex- 
 tensively effectual, and that if these means succeed, the 
 Government will easily devise methods for participating 
 in their produce, the supposed sacrifice dwindles into 
 nothing, or rather the great ends in view are to be 
 promoted, not only without loss to Government, but 
 by a politic measure which may ultimately create new 
 resources, out of which its wants may be supplied, 
 as well as increase those on which it now relies." 
 
 In my Letters and in my replies to Sir John Shore, 
 and the Revenue Board, in 1789, I convey the same 
 sentiments: in one place is the following passage: 
 " If for a moment it be admitted that under a wretched 
 Mogul government there existed no rights, it must be 
 asked should the English not give some ? if few, whether 
 we cannot extend them ? The great object at home 
 and in Bengal, is to govern for the best; when the 
 people are rich, Government must be so ; it need not be 
 apprehended that means will not be found to avail the, ;- 
 selves of subjects' wealth.
 
 72 RYOTWARREE. 
 
 / disposition would be attributed to its author ; nor could 
 
 I have foreseen that on my return from America, I 
 should find the extension of the permanent System so 
 long impeded by controversy, and that I should feel 
 myself in duty bound to defend it. 
 
 Happily for Great Britain the land tax is light and 
 fixed. Imagine the ruling power to be a despot at a 
 distance, and that he determined to oust all the land- 
 holders on the little island, having an army to prevent 
 insurrection, and that when they complained, he should 
 only reply " sic volo sicjubeo stat pro ratione voluntas" 
 you become rich by the labour of farmers, and deprive 
 me of my divine rights as Sovereign. 
 
 Ackbar's minister, Tovranmull, prevailed upon his 
 master to introduce this System ; his details may be 
 seen in Mr. Gladwin's Akbarnameh, they were found 
 impracticable and the System was relinquished. If 
 the great Mogul could not succeed, what must the Com- 
 pany of Merchants trading to the East Indies expect? 
 
 I had taken extracts from the Revenue Letter of Fort 
 St. George, from pages 883 to 951 of the selection of 
 papers before alluded to; but to avoid being tedious, 
 have rejected them. Let those who are advocates for 
 collecting from every Bega, calculate the theutmnds of 
 millions of acres in the Company's territories, and then 
 estimate the probability of every collector being endowed 
 with judgment, activity, and integrity'; lastly, the direc- 
 tors devise .a plan to prevent malversation in these 
 detailed collections. Were power never to be abused, 
 and could Arcadian felicity be realized, I would plead 
 for a Ryotwarree System.
 
 Here I finish th e contrast. 
 
 Fearful of being prolix, I must tear sheets of extracts , 
 and refer to the 5th report of a committee of the House 
 of Commons, and to the Selection of Papers, and other 
 printed documents, containing all necessary information. 
 
 I have avoided shewing how agents may extort mo- 
 ney by monopolies of sandal wood, tobacco, cotton, &c. 
 and how they may embezzle advances, &c. I wish not 
 from one or two examples, to aggravate objections to the 
 Ryotwarree System; my objection is to the principle, 
 which must destroy all intermediate classes which benefit 
 the cultivator by consuming his productions, exchanged 
 for comforts he requires. If we examine the statistics 
 of Great Britain, we shall find that the agriculturists do 
 not amount to a third of the population. 
 
 Let the Company look to the article of Opium, which 
 in 1790, amounted to a trifling sum, and in 1821-2, yielded 
 
 Gross Sales 1,1257,275 
 
 Deduct Cost and Charges 986,727 
 
 Net Revenue in current Rupees . . 1 ,0270,548 
 I think that I do not hazard an exaggerated conjecture 
 when I estimate the increase of Opium in my district 
 since 1785, at quadruple its former produce. A refer- 
 ence may be made to the proceedings sent home then, 
 and at the present period. 
 
 Let us compare the revenue of Great Britain from 
 other sources of taxation, with the trifling land tax, and 
 then let us consider whether if we were to adopt the old 
 system of the French economists, we should augment 
 our resources by putting every imposition upon the land, 
 and by abolishing all proprietory rights. A celebrated 
 agriculturist has said, " Give a man secure possession of 
 a black rock, and lie will convert it into a garden ; ywf- 
 him a few years' lease of a t/arden, and he will turn it 
 into a desert." k
 
 JUDICIARY. 
 
 THOUGH it be admitted that it is incumbent upon 
 me to defend the Mocurrery System, yet it may be 
 deemed an act of supererogation in me to advert to the 
 judicial system in India ; yet, when it shall be consi- 
 dered, that my object in recommending the permanent 
 settlement was expressly that an independent judicial 
 system might be established to render justice between 
 Collector and Zemindar, the Zemindar and Ryot, I 
 trust that I shall be exempted from this imputation. 
 
 I have now the second volume of Selection of 
 Papers, containing 769 folio pages, which display em- 
 barrassments and fluctuations in the mode of adminis- 
 tering equity ; I have also Mr* Mill's severe animad- 
 versions on the Company's Courts of Adawlut, for 
 which I fear there is too much foundation. The multi- 
 plicity of canses remaining always unsettled is the 
 great complaint ; and the above mentioned gentleman 
 justly observes, " that the tedious forms through which 
 the judges had to travel permitted them to decide so 
 small a number of causes, in a given portion of time, 
 aiid the delay and uncertainty which attended a techni- 
 cal and intricate mode of procedure afforded so much 
 encouragement to dishonest litigation, that the pace of 
 decision fell prodigiously behind that of the multiplica- 
 tion of suits, and the path of justice might in some 
 places be regarded as completely blocked up." 
 
 The great desiderata are, 
 
 1st. That justice may be at hand. 
 
 2nd. That there may be despatch.
 
 JUDICIARY. ?5 
 
 3rd. That investigation may not be involved in tech- 
 nical subtleties and tedious forms. 
 
 4th. That litigation may be discouraged. 
 
 For the attainment of the first object, the universal 
 practice of India Punchayet ought to be re-adverted 
 to. 
 
 I have thought much on this subject ; and as the 
 result of mature deliberation, recommend that three 
 Munsiffs should be elected by the people, one from 
 each of three adjoining villages, to form an Arbitration 
 Court : the majority of votes in each village will deter- 
 mine the choice. These are called Munsiffs. These 
 Munsiffs to receive all complaints in the first instance. 
 I have been induced to recommend the election of 
 these Munsiffs, or whatever they may be denominated, 
 by the villagers of each village, from the good effects 
 experienced by frequent elections in the United States : 
 a desire to gain the favourable estimation of our own 
 countrymen is an excellent incentive to good moral 
 conduct. A native Magistrate appointed by Europeans 
 looks only to the persons who promoted him, and is too 
 apt to abuse his trust; relying upon power for sup- 
 port : the records of the Company are so full of in- 
 stances of this kind, that it seems superfluous to expa- 
 tiate upon the preference due to election by natives. 
 When a native must look to the favourable opinion of 
 his fellow villagers and townsmen, amongst whom he 
 lives, the hope of approbation and the fear of censure 
 must influence his conduct ; when also the trio are 
 conscious that their decision may be appealed from to 
 a superior court, where they have no patrons to uphold
 
 7fl JUDICIARY. 
 
 them, they will of course be cautious in their proceed- 
 ings. The election of Munsiffs by the villagers will 
 create a rivalry, and, by degrees, persons of the first 
 abilities and probity will be competitors for the hon- 
 ourable office of Munsiff, or will be urged to act. I 
 recommend that Brahmins should be prohibited from 
 serving as Munsiffs : Brahmins have too much power 
 over weak minds already ;* and as they sometimes lend 
 money at high interest, and practise Dherna to inti- 
 midate their debtors to extort money, and also benefit 
 themselves by working upon religious prejudices : they 
 of course being interested by their profession, would 
 decide in their own favor. That the reasons which 
 prompt me to this objection to the admission of 
 Brahmins (priests) inte the Munsiify may be under- 
 stood, I will now give two cases, from amongst many, 
 which came before me as Judge at Gya : 
 
 A debtor to a Brahmin complained that contrary to 
 the regulations, the Brahmin demanded more than legal 
 interest of twelve per cent., and had threatened to de- 
 stroy himself if npt paid. To cause the death of a 
 Brahmin, being in the eyes of the natives the highest 
 of all crimes, the plaintiff (the debtor) had made every 
 
 * I have been induced by the advice of a friend iu whose judgment I 
 much confide, to reconsider the proposed exclusion of Brahmins. They 
 are very numerous, and have much influence : that this exclusion would 
 be very obnoxious to them, I must allow; yet on the other hand, it ought 
 to be considered, that the influence they possess, might give too much 
 power to the priesthood, who would in general have a preference in elec- 
 tions. In England, clergymen are excluded from the House of Commons, 
 To abler men I leave decision on this point.
 
 JUDICIARY. 77 
 
 sacrifice to comply with the defendant's (Brahmin's) de- 
 mand, but was totally unable to realize the full amount. 
 That the Brahmin had actually wounded himself, and 
 that the plaintiff begged the court would interfere, to 
 relieve him from the anxiety and apprehensions which 
 tortured his mind. The defendant (Brahmin) being in 
 attendance, and acknowledging all the facts, I severely 
 reprimanded him before a very crouded court, for thus 
 availing himself of religious prejudices, to violate the 
 laws against usury ; that he as a priest ought not to be 
 a worldly man, and to use his Brahminical character as 
 a cloak for imposition ; that the court could make no 
 distinctions ; that he should be confined till he signed 
 a Mochulka, (an engagement) under a heavy penalty 
 that he would not practice Dherna ; that if in a rage 
 he should rashly complete the act of suicide, that the 
 court would be responsible, and not the plaintiff, who 
 had properly applied to the court to rescue him from 
 the horrors threatened by the defendant. This decision 
 pleased all the people, and prevented a repetition of 
 Dherna. 
 
 The second case was as follows : A respectable cul- 
 tivator stated, that he had gone with the son of his 
 neighbour, an old friend, to Calcutta; that on their 
 return, the son was taken ill and died ; that he consoled 
 his friend, the father, and received his thanks for 
 the unavailing exertions he had made to preserve his 
 son's life ; that shortly after this, his neighbour lost 
 several cattle by a distemper, and then accused the 
 plaintiff of sorcery, and persuaded all the villagers to 
 shun his society, as he dealt with evil spirits. The
 
 78 JUDICIARY. 
 
 defendant acknowledged all the facts, and said that 
 he had always entertained a friendship for the plaintiff, 
 until his Brahmin informed him of his sorcery, so in- 
 jurious and ungrateful to him. The Brahmin was sum- 
 moned, the court was crowded, and great curiosity was 
 evinced in the countenances of all. The following 
 questions and replies ensued. 
 
 Q. You are produced by the defendant to prove that the 
 plaintiff caused the death of defendant's son, and the mor- 
 tality in his cattle. What have you to say ? Did you so 
 inform him ? 
 
 A. Yes, I did, I know it. 
 
 Q. How do you know it? 
 
 A. I know it by my knowledge. 
 
 Q. How have you obtained this knowledge ? Did you see 
 the plaintiff use poison, or any destructive means? 
 
 A. No. My internal monitor informed me. 
 
 Q. How could yon listen to such a monitor? To my 
 
 mind, you had a mere suspicion, which ought not to be 
 
 imparted without some facts to ground suspicion upon. 
 
 Did any enmity exist between the parties ? Is the plaintiff 
 
 of a malevolent disposition ? 
 
 A. I never heard of any enmity or malevolence, but when 
 applied to by the defendant, I consulted my internal monitor, 
 and gave him (the defendant) my information, or rather 
 judgment. 
 
 Q. Do you receive any compensation for these judgments? 
 
 A. Yes. I always receive from two to five rupees. I re- 
 ceived five rupees from the defendant. 
 
 Q. So then for these five rupees received by you, you 
 attribute a heinous crime to the plaintiff, and render him the 
 most wretched of beings, by having him calumniated and
 
 JUDICIARY. 71) 
 
 expelled from the society of his villagers. Is this a humane 
 or a pious act, thus to occasion discord and unhappiness ? 
 Confiding in your assumed sanctity, the innocent and igno- 
 rant are taught to believe in supernatural agencies, and to 
 be terrified by vague alarms and superstitious prejudices. 
 The decree of the court is, that you enter into an engagement 
 under a penalty of 100 rupees, never to disclose the whispers 
 or intimations of your internal monitor, and that you repay 
 the 5 rupees, and also the expence of the plaintiff's and de- 
 fendant's journey, 5 rupees each; and that after you have 
 signed the engagement, you accompany an officer of the 
 court, and pay 10 rupees, the expence of a meeting, and a 
 rice entertainment, that the plainttff and defendant may be 
 reconciled in the presence of all them, the parties having 
 expressed their willingness to be friends as heretofore. 
 
 The Brahmin entered the court with confidence, but 
 as the audience laughed at the internal monitor, which 
 was well ridiculed and condemned, he with much reluc- 
 tance signed the engagement, and complied with the 
 court's decision. An account of this trial spread every- 
 where, and the Brahmins refrained from imputations 
 of witchcraft, sorcery, &c. 
 
 I will now put down questions which occur to me, 
 with answers thereto. 
 
 Q. Will not a Munsiff court, in every three villages, 
 make courts too numerous ? 
 
 A. If it be judged so, there may be a court of three 
 Munsiffs for six villages ; but in my opinion the three 
 villages should be preferred, as the system will approach 
 nearer to the Punchayet mode of the natives. No ex- 
 pence will be saved, and many inconveniences present 
 themselves.
 
 HO JUDICIARY. 
 
 Q. How would you apply this system to a populous 
 city? 
 
 A. I would divide it into convenient wards or divisions. 
 
 Q. How would you regulate the elections? 
 
 A. A superior court should appoint a native judge 
 of election for the day, he may be a resident of the 
 village ; and he, after receiving the tickets, should make 
 out an account of the number of votes, and put seals 
 upon a paper containing the original tickets to be re- 
 ferred to, in case of dispute. 
 
 Q. What person ought to be entitled to vote ? 
 
 A. Everyman above twenty years of age. 
 
 Q. Suppose two persons to have equal votes ? 
 
 A- In that case let the eldest man be preferred. 
 
 Q. Suppose no election be made in a village ? 
 
 A. Then let the superior court appoint a Munsifffor 
 the year. 
 
 Q. Will not annual elections be too frequent ? 
 
 A. If it should be deemed so, they may be biennial 
 or triennial. 
 
 Q. Would you recommend that the Munsiffs should 
 be re-eligible? 
 
 A. Certainly; because the re-election will be a 
 proof of general approbation, and the Munsiff will be- 
 come more experienced in judicial business, and better 
 acquainted with the characters of the villagers. The 
 power of exclusion being vested with the villagers, will 
 be the great incentive to uprightness, and deterrer of 
 misconduct. 
 
 The imitation of our English courts has failed ; the 
 Goyendas or Espionage plan has also failed, and the tax
 
 JUDICIARY. 81 
 
 on the commencement of a suit, has been properly re- 
 probated . The attempts in erery case were well intended 
 but ill advised. 
 
 The following from Mr. H. Strachey, the Judge and 
 Magistrate of Midtfapore, in reply to interrogatories, is 
 a very valuable document. He objects to the fees and 
 stamp duties which were introduced to check litigation, 
 and very justly observes, that " when a poor man has 
 been oppressed, he should be freed from trouble and 
 expense. He is not, in such a situation, a fair object 
 for taxation. It does not become the ruling power to 
 add to his misfortune, by levying impositions upon 
 him. It must, I am sure, constantly happen, that a 
 Ryot gives up his prosecution in despair on finding the 
 expense of continuing it beyond his power to sustain." 
 After lamenting the chicanery which the forms in our 
 Courts produce, Mr. Strachey says (Sect. 13), " When 
 a suit is filed in a MunsifFs Sheristah, it is taken up 
 immediately ; there is no time or opportunity for the 
 fabrication of a defence, and they cannot easily deceive 
 him. But that if a suit comes before a Zillah Judge, 
 besides the inevitable delay and expense at the outset, 
 the case is entirely changed ; intrigue and counter 
 complaints occur ; the most imprudent falsehoods are 
 advanced with impunity, and in the end, perhaps, an 
 erroneous decision is passed.'" 
 
 " Should it here occur, that very few if any natives 
 are qualified, from habit and education, to pronounce 
 a decision, or to comprehend a complicated judicial 
 case ; that the range of their ideas is too narrow ; that 
 their minds are cramped, and that they possess not that 
 
 L
 
 82 JUDICIARY. 
 
 vigor and perseverance, and enlarged views which 
 would enable them to perform the duty of judges. 
 If there be any one of this opinion, I would take the 
 liberty to ask, how it is possible the natives in general 
 should, in the miserable subordinate and servile em- 
 ployments to which they are confined have qualified 
 themselves better? I would observe, how very easily 
 they all acquire the requisite qualifications for the 
 duties which we are pleased to entrust to them. I 
 would ask, who can doubt that they would very shortly, 
 if not depressed and dispirited, become at least equal 
 to the functions they performed before we came among 
 them." 
 
 " 17. I confess it is my wish, though possibly I may 
 be blamed for expressing it, not only to have the autho- 
 rity of the natives as judges extended, but to see them, 
 if possible, enjoy important and confidential situations 
 in other departments of the state." 
 
 The Munsiffs may have a rupee or two paid on each 
 suit, or a perdiem, whilst they serve, and trifling fees 
 may be fixed on the plaint, answer, and rejoinder. 
 Witnesses will be of course at hand, and thus vast ex- 
 pense and loss of time will be saved. I cannot devise 
 a better plan to obtain simplicity, cheapness and im- 
 partiality. The Quakers avoid litigation by references 
 to arbiters, and unanimous approbation is given to 
 their adjustments. 
 
 To obtain the 2nd and 3rd objects, viz. dispatch and 
 an avoidance of long pleadings, 
 
 I recommend that the simplest forms of proceeding 
 should be prescribed, and that reference to precedents
 
 JUDICIARY. 8 
 
 should be prohibited ; thus errors cannot be perpetuated 
 or occasioned by imaginary coincidences, and thus 
 astuteness cannot puzzle or mislead common sense. 
 When I enter a lawyer's library and see his shelves 
 loaded with reports which are annually increasing, it is 
 evident that laws are made a mystery. When I find 
 men relying more upon the abilities of their lawyer than 
 the justice of their cause, I lament the situation of the 
 people. When I hear of the sums paid and of the 
 law's delay, I wonder not that Hamlet should have 
 reckoned the law as one of the evils which would 
 justify recourse to the quietus of a bodkin, " for that 
 undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller 
 returns." 
 
 The expences of European Courts almost exceed 
 belief : but few men have ever calculated the costs of 
 processes, of witnesses, of jurymen, &c. and, added 
 thereto, the value of time lost to persons in attendance. 
 I once amused myself by forming an estimate of these 
 expenses and of the fortunes of the lawyers, and was 
 surprised at the amount. In the country towns of the 
 United States the best houses are in general found to 
 belong to gentlemen of the bar. The train of ideas 
 which this subject produced caused me unfeigned un- 
 easiness, and my mind came to the conclusion, that the 
 lawyers and the forms of Court, such as assumpsit, 
 trover, &c. trespass on the case, and the contradictory 
 precedents cited by them, caused about three-fourths 
 of the suits, which impoverished their clients, cor- 
 rupted the morals of the community, and disseminated 
 animosities amongst neighbours. In India, very for-
 
 84 JUDICIARY. 
 
 tunately, there is no established body of lawyers, who 
 can have influence to prevent any amelioration of the 
 jurisprudence. The Company, therefore, may set 
 an example to the world, and give justice to mil- 
 lions of native subjects. That fallible men like 
 Mansiffs may sometimes err in their judgments must 
 be admitted, and so may a jury ; but I once heard 
 a most eminent jurisconsult say, that whenever he 
 doubted the correctness of a jury's decision, he 
 in general found on re-consideration their judgment 
 right. Happy will be the natives of India if John Doe 
 and Richard Roe are not made denizens, and if they 
 remain in perpetual ignorance of the forms of institu- 
 ting suits, in assumpsit, in trespass on the case, &c. &c. 
 
 The publications of precedents, and the decisions of 
 Judges cause a great augmentation of lawsuits ; contra- 
 dictory precedents are often cited, and lawyers are too 
 frequently misled by them; nay, even the Bench is 
 sometimes puzzled how to determine, such nice distinc- 
 tions do the bounds : divide between two cases to an 
 unlettered or unlegalised man, apparently analogous, 
 and yet with contrary decisions ; hence has arisen the 
 common observation of " the glorious uncertainty of the 
 law." 
 
 1 now come to the fourth great desideratum, the 
 diminution of litigation, a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished. 
 
 If suits multiply so much that a court cannot clear 
 the docket, or in other words give decisions on all 
 cases ready for trial, such court is a mockery, nay, a 
 curse. 1 came to a court where hundreds, nay, thou-
 
 JUDICIARY. 85 
 
 sands of causes were to be tried ; my reason told me 
 that I could not fulfil the object of my appointment as 
 Judge if I pursued the usual method. I deliberated 
 long, and then came to a determination that I would 
 annex damages to judgments, that litigation might be 
 discouraged. If a plaintiff made out a plain case, and 
 the defendant evinced evasions and subterfuges, I gave 
 a decision to the following effect. The plaintiff has 
 been caused much expence, trouble, apprehension, and 
 loss of time, and much artifice has been used to defeat 
 his claim ; I therefore award to him principal, interest, 
 and damages on his claim, that debtors may 
 
 see that honesty is the best policy, and that they ought 
 to do every thing to satisfy their creditors. 
 
 After a decision of this kind, the defendants sought 
 out their creditors and settled with them, and every day 
 much time was taken up in writing suits compromised, 
 in other words, the plaintiffs were satisfied. 
 
 On the other hand, when the plaintiff had attempted 
 to use the court as an instrument of oppression, by 
 introducing groundless or frivolous claims, which he 
 tried to substantiate by false witnesses, I not only non- 
 suited him, but decreed damages to the defendant, to 
 compensate him for anxiety, risque, and loss of time. 
 After this, the time of the court was much occupied 
 in recording suits withdrawn, withdrawn. 
 
 It has been sagaciously observed by a judge, that 
 litigious and fraudulent debtors are numerous, but that 
 obdurate creditors are rare. 
 
 The consequences of this mode of proceeding proved 
 highly satisfactory ; defendants who could not pay, ho-
 
 80 JUDICIARY. 
 
 nestly acknowledged their debts, and those cases only 
 were disputed, where right on each side was involved 
 in difficulties, such as inheritances, boundaries, intricate 
 partnership accounts, &c. My court no longer afforded 
 an arena on which cunning, subtlety, and knavery, could 
 combat with success ; honesty became the best policy. 
 Unless damages are given, a debtor owing 10,000 rupees, 
 if he can keep off a claim by quirks and manoeuvres, 
 even when judgment is obtained against him, has only 
 to pay the principal and simple interest, which at 6 per 
 cent, amounts in five years to 3000 rupees, and a trifle 
 for costs ; whilst he may by making 10 per cent, and 
 by compound interest, amass above 6000. Is not 
 this a bonus for withholding payment? Ought not 
 an unjust prosecutor to be punished ? Should not the 
 defendant obtain retribution for his risque and vex- 
 ations, and sufferings in pnrse, body, and mind ? Ought 
 not also a fraudful debtor to be compelled on the other 
 hand, not only to pay his full debt, but to compensate 
 his creditor for his expences, uneasiness, and losses? 
 I have often thought, after my experience, that a jury 
 with this power would diminish law-suits at least one half. 
 The power to give damages, is in my opinion, a most 
 desirable one to introduce into civil cases ; it proved in 
 practice the greatest preventive to litigation. In my 
 humble opinion it is a sine qua non to produce justice. 
 In most cases, a mere decision with simple costs, does 
 not give justice. A plaintiff after causing much trouble, 
 anxiety, and expence, if merely non-suited with trifling 
 costs, has had the chance of obtaining an unjust claim, 
 and has had the gratification of malignity ; but if he be
 
 JUDICIARY. 87 
 
 nonsuited with damages, the poisoned chalice is re- 
 turned to his own lips, and others are deterred from 
 instituting false claims. The defendant, by the same 
 fear of damages, will not attempt to defraud his credi- 
 tor by denial, false witnesses, &c. The dishonest ought 
 to be afraid of a court, but by the multitude of causes 
 in Asiatic courts; it is evident that the law seems to be 
 a gaining game, whereby unjust plaintiffs and fraudulent 
 debtors rely upon cunning and various devices to deceive 
 the court, without danger of retaliation by a decision. 
 
 When a party appeals from the Munsiffs, the appel- 
 lant if he fails, ought to be compelled to pay 10 per 
 cent, in addition to the original judgment, to deter 
 from litigious appeals. A law of this description has 
 an excellent effect in Virginia, one of the United States. 
 Mr. Tucker, who long served in the Judiciary depart- 
 ment, and who has established a character for integrity, 
 assiduity and judgment, says : 
 
 " The multiplication of appeals is in my opinion a 
 serious evil. We are never certain that the last decision 
 will be more correct than the first ; but we are quite 
 certain that a suit cannot be passed through the ordeal 
 of a court of justice without much inconvenience. The 
 parties are subjected to a heavy expence in every stage 
 of the proceedings ; they lose what ought to be of value, 
 time, and their attention is diverted from useful occu- 
 pations. The time o fthe public functionaries, which is 
 the property of the community at large, and which 
 ought to be a valuable property, is often wasted unpro- 
 fitably, and the accumulation of business becomes so 
 formidable, that the Judge, industrious as he may be,
 
 88 JUDICIARY. 
 
 seeing no prospect of melting down the mass, is dis- 
 couraged altogether from the attempt. We never work 
 with cheerfulness and spirit when we see no end to the 
 labour." 
 
 "In a large proportion of the causes which come be- 
 fore our courts, the appeal is prosecuted, not for the 
 purpose of obtaining the correction of some notable 
 blunder, but for the purpose of obtaining time, of evad- 
 ing the immediate payment of just demands, or of 
 embarrassing and distressing some personal adversary. 
 The natives of these provinces, to whom the duel is 
 little known, repair to our courts as to the listed field, 
 where they may give vent to all the malignant passions; 
 but should we encourage them in this perverted use 
 of the Forum? In my opinion the combat should not 
 be allowed repeatedly, at all events; one appeal is 
 surely sufficient in every case, and when we have ob- 
 tained the solemn judgment of two disinterested men, 
 we ought to be satisfied. Errors will still be committed, 
 I admit, as long as human wisdom is confined within 
 narrow bounds, and as long as human passions have 
 sway ; but it is better that a few individuals should 
 suffer injury from the mistakes of a judge, than that a 
 whole community should be harrassed, and all the ends 
 of justice be defeated." 
 
 Having feelings of aversion to litigiousness in unison 
 with Mr. Tucker's, I reasoned thus : " when a boy com- 
 plains to his mother, or schoolmaster, of another boy's 
 withholding his play-thing, or book, if the other denies 
 it and prevaricates, is the mother or master content 
 with restoring the thing withheld, does she or he, not
 
 JUDICIARY. 89 
 
 punish him for the act and the prevarication ?" Thus if 
 a defendant withholds the plaintiff's money and denies 
 the debt, and tries by quirks to evade it, ought not 
 Munsiffs or Judges, whoever try the cause, to have 
 power to give principal, interest, and also damages? 
 These damages operate as a retribution to the plaintiff, 
 and as a punishment to the defendant, and they have 
 by example an excellent effect, for debtors will com- 
 promise with their creditors, and not set them at defiance. 
 I found this annexing of damages, when chicanery and 
 evasion were used, put a stop to the practice, and the 
 court, though its doors were opened without impedi- 
 ments, became a terror to the unjust. 
 
 When lenity withholds the exercise of power, lest it 
 should be abused, vice will triumph. When A prose- 
 cutes B for a thousand rupees, and brings accounts 
 against him to that amount, and should B prove by 
 receipts and witnesses, that 950 have been paid, is it 
 equitable to give a judgment for 50, and throw all the 
 costs on the defendant, which must be very heavy? 
 Ought not the court to throw all the costs on the plain- 
 tiff A, and damages also ; for the defendant B would 
 have paid a just demand of 50 ; at any rate A. was 
 culpable by an exaggerated claim, which put B to the 
 trouble of proving payments, and to the risk of losing 
 a large sum. 
 
 Power should never permit lenity to degenerate to 
 weakness. It is always applied to for redress of 
 grievances, or for punishment of wrongs. In disputes 
 about boundaries and inheritances, there may be fair 
 causes for controversy, and in these cases-damages will 
 
 M
 
 90 JUDICIARY. 
 
 not be given. Were an experiment made of what E 
 propose, there would be an opportunity afforded for 
 real justice, and the court would not be used as a me- 
 dium to gratify revenge, or to commit an injury. 
 
 All the replies of collectors and judges to questions, 
 are in favor of Punchayet : (five assembled, to whom a 
 cause is referred for arbitration or decision. See Glos- 
 ary) my proposition is for three from different villages ; 
 if a court of five is preferred, be it so. This should be 
 the first court, and suspicion ought not to be scrupulous 
 about delegating power to make it effectual. 
 
 The Lakherage lands are estimated by Mr. Tucker to 
 amount to a sixth of the lands paying tax, and stated 
 to yield 10,000,000 s. r*. ; whilst the Zemindaiy 
 taxed lands yield 50,000,000. Sir John Shore in his 
 able minute on the Revenues, published in the 5th re- 
 port of a committee of the House of Commons, page 
 181, estimates the produce of the lands exempted from 
 revenue, at 1,25,63,913 rupees per annum. 
 
 These grants were contrary to the equitable principle 
 revealed by moral feelings, that every man should con- 
 tribute to the defence of his property from external 
 foes, and internal violations, according to the value he 
 derives from that property ; they were also unjust, for 
 the amount exempted must have fallen upon those 
 who pay for the security of their own property ; as it is 
 always supposed that the government only requires 
 what is absolutely necessary for troops, officers of jus- 
 tice, (civil as well as criminal) and other establishments 
 for collecting the revenue, &c. 
 
 I think that the Lakherage or untaxed lands, should
 
 JUDICIARY. 91 
 
 be called upon to pay a considerable portion of judiciary 
 and police expences. The possessors of them, grateful 
 to the Company for being so long overlooked, and par- 
 tially exempted while others were too much burthened, 
 would acknowledge the justice of their being called 
 upon for a very moderate share of their incomes, to 
 support civil and criminal courts, upon a solemn pro- 
 mise that the amount sbould be permanent, and never 
 exceeded. The faith which the government has ob- 
 served for so many years to the Zemindars in the 
 Mocurrery Settlement, will give the rent-free land 
 holders confidence, and they might be called upon 
 voluntarily to give in a statement upon honor, what 
 they ought to pay. Suppose for instance, ten per cent, 
 for the government's share of the Lakherage incomes, 
 which the Sovereign, or Nabob, or Rajah, had impro- 
 perly alienated, and which the Company out of false 
 delicacy, has continued. An investigation into titles 
 causes alarm, injures the Lakherage holders, and shakes 
 confidence in their tenures ; when a collector is con- 
 vinced that land is held exempt from revenue with- 
 out a valid title, let him prosecute in the name of 
 the Company, but let not a commissioner be ap- 
 pointed to terrify them by authority to call upon 
 them to produce their titles. They have already pre- 
 sented them to be recorded ; and perhaps native officers 
 may have extorted large sums from them. 
 
 If it be suspected that any one, required to give his 
 statement of income or portion of Judiciary tax upon 
 honor, is guilty of great concealment, let the reasons 
 for the suspicion be assigned, and the Lakherage land-
 
 92 JUDICIARY. 
 
 holder compelled to answer ; and should his answer 
 be unsatisfactory, let an investigation take place. I 
 have mentioned ten or twenty per cent. : perhaps five 
 per cent, would be sufficient. The Zemindars paying 
 land tax will of course applaud this measure. 
 
 The confidence we have ensured by perseverance in 
 the Mocurrery System is invaluable. The natives are 
 impressed thereby with a conviction that we are soli- 
 citous for their welfare, and we may be assured that 
 they will zealously co-operate in any judicial system 
 for their benefit.
 
 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 Custom Houses on the Ganges and other Rivers. 
 
 These ought to be abolished : even the plea of ne- 
 cessity cannot be admitted ; for any other tax were 
 preferable. The duty is 5 per cent., and when once 
 paid, a rowannah or passport is granted to prevent a 
 second demand. Even the first duty is very objection- 
 able ; for the merchant can purchase five per cent, less 
 of exportable articles, and must put interest and profit 
 on the sum thus paid to indemnify himself. I objected 
 to internal customs thirty years ago, and published in 
 my " Rising Resources " the following extract from 
 Blackstone : 
 
 " The earlier a tax is levied upon a commodity, the 
 heavier it falls upon a consumer in the end ; for every 
 trader through whose hands it passes must have a profit, 
 not only upon the raw material and his own time and 
 labor in preparing it, but also upon the very tax itself 
 which he advances to the government, otherwise he 
 loses the use and interest of the money which he so 
 advances. 
 
 " An excise duty is the most economical way of 
 taxing the subject ; the charge of levying, collecting, 
 and managing the excise duties being considerably less 
 in proportion than in other branches of the revenue. 
 It also renders the commodity cheaper to the consumer 
 than charging it with customs to the same amount 
 would do, for the same reason just now given, because 
 in general paid in a much later stage of it." 
 
 BLACK.STONK.
 
 94 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 As the native merchants are not now very rich, I 
 will suppose the price of a cargo to be 1,000 rupees. 
 If he pays his duty first at Mirzapore he will have to 
 stop to be examined at five custom houses afterwards. 
 It ought not to be expected that every one of these 
 will not be guilty of vexations and of causing delays : 
 that goods should be passed without the exaction of 
 some fee or douceur were an expectation which would 
 betray an ignorance of practices in all countries. The 
 custom-house officers can always find pretences for 
 detention, and may expose goods to damage by rain 
 (as they in general are sent down in the rainy season) ; 
 in short, they can always make it the merchant's interest 
 to promote dispatch. It is not easy to estimate the 
 merchant's loss by even the requisite stoppage of an 
 officer strictly performing his duty. Should the ex- 
 pense amount to ten rupees at each station, here will 
 be an additional imposition of fifty rupees, or five per 
 cent, more, exclusive of loss of time, wages, &c. If 
 the merchant adds twenty per cent, only to the 100 
 paid, he must put this sum on the original cost of 
 1,000, and if he be detained only two days at each 
 station, he and all his hands will have lost ten days' time. 
 Let a government estimate these losses upon all the 
 boats trading up and down the Jumna, Ganges, &c. and 
 it will be startled at the great injury done to commerce. 
 
 Now let us consider how all important it is for a 
 foreign conqueror, drawing tribute from an extensive 
 empire to encourage exportation. The Company has 
 been long complaining of the extra duty levied upon 
 India sugars ; it has been stated, that this partial extra
 
 MISCELLANEA. 95 
 
 tax upon India sugars operates upon the British people 
 by the difference of cost to the amount of 1,872,481 
 pounds sterling. 
 
 There is a drawback, I believe, on exportation from 
 Calcutta, of two and a half per cent. Now suppose 
 the Company had no internal customs or duties, and 
 levied only a tax on exportation of cotton, sugar, silk, 
 opium, &c. upon foreign vessels, the British might 
 enjoy thereby a preference of all this valuable trade. 
 
 1st. The Company ought to consider, that muslins 
 made by machinery are now exported from Great 
 Britain to Bengal, to the destruction of Dacca manu- 
 facturers, and that this importation of British muslin 
 must be paid for by productions of the Asiatic soil. 
 2ndly. They ought to consider also that more is now 
 required from India, to pay for more woollen goods to 
 clothe the army, &c. the whole exports being estimated 
 at 3,000,000/. sterling. 3rdly . They ought to consider that 
 more is required from India to support home establish- 
 ments and to pay the interest of debt, and the dividends 
 of stockholders, and the pay of pensions and of for- 
 tunes of individuals annually returning; in short, it 
 ought to be the Company's study how to remove every 
 impediment to the exports of raw materials and manu- 
 factures from their subjects in India, and to adopt, on 
 the contrary, every means to encourage them. Should 
 the specie be conveyed away, a scene of distress must 
 ensue which it is painful to contemplate ; and that specie 
 is already scarce I am convinced from the price of 
 labor, of food, and of interest up the country. The 
 rate of interest in Calcutta is no criterion; for there ;ll 
 
 
 s
 
 96 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 the specie is accumulated. This brings me to a subject 
 which has claimed very little attention in India : I allude 
 to the circulating medium. We have seemed to act as 
 if we imagined there was an inexhaustible store of 
 specie, always replenished, like the widow's cruise of oil. 
 When Great Bri.ain hus been in want of specie, the 
 Bengal government has sometimes shipped off in a 
 year 1,000,000 pounds sterling in coin. When the 
 specie was thus sent away, sometimes no investment 
 could be provided ; so the Company, instead of ad- 
 vancing money for goods, which money would go to 
 the landholders through the manufacturers, caused this 
 channel to be stopped, and prevented the agriculturists 
 from paying their revenue, and rendered them liable to 
 imprisonment and to the confiscation and sale of their 
 A property, occasioned by a measure beyond their control. 
 The following is an extract from a letter written to the 
 Directors by the Governor- General in Council : " A 
 great number of the Honourable Company's ships of the 
 ensuing season will, we fear, be detained in India, at 
 a very heavy expense : the manufacturers must suffer 
 great hardships from the discontinuance of the demand 
 for their labour ; the valuable fabrics, so long supported 
 by a steady and well regulated commerce, may be de- 
 based in their quality, and perhaps in some instances 
 lost to the country, while the suspension of the cus- 
 tomary advances to the manufacturers, may have an 
 unfavorable effect on the different branches of the pub- 
 lic revenue. These consequences are earnestly to be 
 deprecated." 
 
 Should the Company ever again find it their bounden
 
 MISCELLANEA. 97 
 
 duty to send the specie away from their own subjects 
 for the preservation of the British empire, the Gover- 
 nor-General in Council ought to be authorized to create 
 substitutes for the metallic money, which substitutes 
 should have real value, by being declared receivable in 
 all payments to government, and convertible into four 
 or five per cent, stock, at the will of the holder. 
 
 I remember reading about forty years ago, Neckar 
 upon the resources of France, and the following obser- 
 vation from that able financier made a great impression. 
 He remarked, that in England the money paid away 
 by the exchequer, rapidly reverted to it, as the money 
 never went to a great distance ; but that in France 
 money paid on the frontiers, very slowly returned to 
 the Paris treasury. The same quantity of money there- 
 fore in England, would occasion more prosperity by 
 rapid action and re-action, than in France. In all the 
 writings of revenue officers, I perceive calculations 
 which appear to them mathematically conclusive, viz: 
 " Such a country at such a period, yielded so much re- 
 venue ; it has been desolated by wars, but now under 
 our protection, it will rapidly improve ; and I have 
 made engagements with the Zemindars and farmers, 
 with an annual increase." 
 
 They do not consider that the then ruler of the coun- 
 try maintained an army, and disbursed all his revenue 
 annually amongst his own people ; but that the Company 
 often draws a great portion of the revenue to Calcutta, 
 and sometimes sends it abroad to Madras, China, &c.; 
 even the allowances to the civil officers of a native ruler, 
 are spent on the spot, but the Company's civil servants 
 always send a portion home.
 
 98 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 I am of opinion that the Company would experience 
 much benefit by making a paper currency, to a limited 
 amount. A board might be appointed to make this 
 currency payable to the order of the Court of Directors, 
 who may sell bills on this Board to foreigners, with which 
 they may purchase the productions and manufactures of 
 India. Would not the foreigners prefer these bills to 
 carrying out specie? 
 
 1st. They would save insurance. 
 
 2d. If a ship were lost, the second set of bills would 
 arrive, with which the foreigner's agent in India might 
 purchase goods, and send them home ; this would be a 
 great object for a merchant. 
 
 A year or two's experience would enable the Com- 
 pany to judge of the policy of this measure. That it 
 would be advantageous to the natives to have more 
 money circulating among them, cannot be doubted ; 
 and that the Company would benefit as sovereigns, is 
 undeniable. The capability of a government to make 
 great collections, must depend upon the quantity of 
 money in circulation. The government of Great Britain 
 collects fifty-six millions sterling, from fourteen mil- 
 lions of people; whilst in India the Company with 
 difficulty collects twenty-two millions sterling, from 
 eighty or one hundred millions of subjects. If the 
 number of productive labourers in Great Britain, 
 were estimated, it would be found that their proportion 
 is much less to that of consumers, than in India, where 
 indeed there are comparatively very few fruyes consu- 
 mere nati. Is it not self-evident that a government's 
 receipts can only be according to the quantity of the 
 circulating medium in the country. A nation of agri-
 
 MISCELLANEA. 99 
 
 culturists may be always poor, for its grain may not be 
 exported. Money is an effect when it is imported for 
 the productions of the soil, or for ores, or for manufac- 
 tures ; but it is a cause when created by a government. 
 It is the receipt of money by the government, whether 
 stamped on metal, or on paper, which gives a value to it. ^/ 
 
 When almost all the specie had disappeared from 
 Great Britain, the government, land-holders, merchants, 
 &c. determined to take bank notes as a national paper 
 currency ; and thus like Archimedes, when he jumped 
 from the bath and ran into the street, exclaiming.EHree&a/ 
 Eureeka! having discovered the hydrostatic balance, 
 Mr. Pitt might also have proclaimed ' Eureeka'. With 
 the increase of bank notes, the funds and all property 
 rose ; manufactures of every description multiplied. 
 Houses sprung up everywhere, and the exports were 
 soon doubled to cause a favorable balance of trade, (not- 
 withstanding vast expenditures of armies and navies 
 abroad) and thus to bring back specie. The benefits /\ 
 of this measure we still enjoy, from augmented machi- 
 nery, and other improvements. 
 
 This circulating medium could not be issued to any 
 considerable excess; for a Director of the Bank of 
 England when asked upon the suspension of specie 
 for payments, " where was the limit to their issues ?" 
 he replied, " the demand" memorable words ! which 
 ought to be inscribed in letters of gold, on a column of 
 marble, in the Bank. Borrowers from them at 5 per 
 cent, would of course repay them, should their issues 
 have reduced the value of paper money to 4| or 4 per 
 cent.; here was the preventative to over-issues. 
 
 The natives of India, blessed with a benign climate,
 
 100 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 require very little cloathing or fuel, and, by their reli- 
 gion, are prohibited from eating of meat ; if they had 
 a good government, with security by laws equitably ad- 
 ministered, and a sufficiency of money to establish fac- 
 tories and machinery, and to pay workmen, they might 
 undersell all the world. If 15,000,000 of persons can 
 easily bear taxes amounting to fifty millions sterling, 
 without any retardation, what might not one hundred 
 millions of Asiatics bear? The price of labour might 
 indeed rise from two pence to three pence per diem, 
 and the price of grain might rise a little, to the advan- 
 tage of landholders ; but what a heart-cheering scene 
 of prosperity would be presented, and what resources 
 would be developed ! At present, to use the words of 
 the Roman orator, whilst only agriculture and specie 
 are called upon, " Cavendum est ne consumpto osrario 
 repentina calamitate Respublica desereratur" 
 
 The minimum price at which the United States sell 
 their uncultivated lands used to be two dollars upon 
 credit ; but it is now reduced to one dollar and a half 
 cash. The expense of clearing is at least ten dollars, 
 and the whole United States contain 1,004,174 square 
 miles, which, at 640 acres, make ^618,600,000,000 
 acres, and the value of the cultivated land averages at 
 least ten dollars per acre : I might say twenty. The 
 Company's territories are more extensive than those of 
 the United States ; yet, for round numbers, I will 
 rate them only 1,000,000 of square miles, or 640,000,000 
 of acres, and 1 will estimate the value at only two 
 rupees. Thus, by Mocurrery freeholds, the Company 
 will obtain a security of 1,280,000,000 of rupees in 
 land for their revenue, which they could not have were
 
 MISCELLANEA. 101 
 
 they sovereigns of the soil, looking only to cultivators. 
 The great security thus to be obtained for the revenue 
 has not, perhaps, been considered : I trust it will have 
 weight. 
 
 But to render these lands valuable, there ought to 
 be a sufficiency of money : of which I am convinced 
 there is a scarcity. A tolerably accurate opinion may 
 be formed if an investigation be made of the coinage 
 of rupees and pagodas annually in India, and of the 
 quantity of Indian coins melted at the Mint here, to be 
 converted into sovereigns and shillings. 
 
 The advantage of a paper money over specie in 
 troublous times is, that the former will not be hoarded 
 and secreted. A government also can always borrow 
 on advantageous terms, when money is in abundance ; 
 such a currency, also, is always a bond of union. 
 
 Mr. Henry St. George Tucker, who has rendered 
 essential services to the Company in their financial de- 
 partment, recommends selling of bills drawn upon India, 
 and it affords me much satisfaction that he has antici- 
 pated my proposition. I was always against transferring 
 debt from India to England. Were we t5 reverse the 
 system, and to have stockholders in our towns through- 
 out India to a limited amount,* they would be all inte- 
 rested supporters of our government. 
 
 To the accompanying pamphlets, published in Ame- 
 rica, I request particular attention : they are the result 
 
 To prevent too much money accumulating in the Treasury, it would 
 be advisable to pay the interest of the debt in India quarterly instead of 
 half-yearly ; it would also be more convenient for the stockholders. 
 Ricardo observes that the stocks, &c. always rise a little after the pay- 
 ment day.
 
 102 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 of much reading and writing, and may be of essential 
 utility, by suggesting a mode, to prevent a want of 
 money over the extensive territories now possessed by 
 the Company and amongst so numerous a population. 
 There ought, I think, to be a financial board in India, 
 to attend to the income and expences, roads, canals, 
 births, deaths, and all statistical accounts. A road 
 causes a net gain to the sovereign of the time saved, 
 and thus also, internal articles, such as grain, indigo, 
 sugar, cotton, &c. are brought cheaper to a sea-port for 
 exportation. The Congress of the United States is 
 about to make a road from Washington to New 
 Orleans, whereby a journey of 30 days will be shortened 
 to ten. Thus the same number of men, of waggons, 
 of horses, and of carriages can treble their business, 
 and thus treble times that treble intercourse will be en- 
 couraged by the safety and expedition of travelling. 
 In India also, every improvement will call forth feel- 
 ings of gratitude, when the natives exclaim, " this is 
 the work of the British." Postage, also, may thus by 
 degrees become an item of revenue : roads, as well as 
 letters, " sp/feftd the soft intercourse from soul to soul," 
 and expedite troops, &c. A small sum, economically 
 laid out, may preserve many noble buildings now fall- 
 ing into decay, from destruction, the sight of which 
 now cause painful sensations in the natives' breasts, and 
 unfavourable sentiments towards their rulers. The 
 Commissioners, Messrs. H. W. Cox and H. St. George 
 Tucker, write from Agra, " It is impossible to visit this 
 city without feelings of sensible regret at the neglected 
 state of its greatest ornament of a work which has
 
 MISCELLANEA. 103 
 
 rendered it celebrated, not only in India, but through- 
 out the countries of Europe. The beautiful mausoleum, 
 erected by the Emperor Saw Jahan (the Taje, as it is 
 called), long the pride and boast of India, and still a 
 solitary monument of the splendour of its former rulers, 
 is hastening to decay, and will soon become an object 
 of reproach to the British government. This wonder- 
 ful edifice, which commanded the respect of the hostile 
 sects who, at different times, have had possession of 
 Agra, is likely to mark in its fall the administration of 
 a people who rank among the most civilized in the 
 world. By the rapacious Jaats it was spared, and the 
 predatory Mahrattas preserved it with the utmost care." 
 " A small revenue has been assigned as a fund, 
 to defray the expences of keeping the building in re- 
 pair ; but we know not that any care is taken to direct 
 its appropriation to its proper object." 
 
 This solemn pathetic appeal to the sensibility and 
 pride of the Governor-General in Council, obtained an 
 annual donation of a lac of rupees but can he have 
 leisure to attend to its application ? / 
 
 The mausoleum of Sheershaw in^^fasseram, equally * 
 claims attention. In a picture now in the antechamber 
 of the East India Company, this superb edifice rising 
 from the midst of a lake and surrounded by tombs 
 of princes on its banks, giving pre-eminence even in 
 death to their monarch, is seen in a state of decay, and 
 trees are exhibited disparting the massy stones. Forty /\ 
 years ago I recorded my melancholy ; perhaps the 
 dome, then obtruding into the sky, is now part of avast 
 heap above the water, shewing where this rival of St. 
 Paul's once stood. Godwin, in recantation of his first
 
 104 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 work on political justice, wherein the power of moral 
 feelings was to be disregarded, has published a good 
 work on the influence of monuments and public works. 
 There ought also, in my opinion, to be a separate 
 Revenue Board for central India: the Governor-General 
 in Council having to attend to Ceylon, Bombay, and 
 Madras, and to the whole country, from Ceylon to 
 Sutledge, is burthened with too much business. Cal- 
 cutta is certainly too remote fromour, ceded and con- 
 quered territories to the north *?" to have a proper 
 control over them. From that quarter danger is prin- 
 cipally to be apprehended; Europeans have in that 
 quarter more easy intercourse with the warlike natives, 
 who must in secret, feel mortified by their subjugation, 
 and who once had their sovereign at Delhi, &c. 
 Should our cantonments on the frontier be taken by 
 surprise, there ought to be a strong fortified town, 
 under a presidency, to afford an asylum for fugitives, 
 and to arrest the progress of an invading enemy. 
 
 Ought there not also to be a presidency at hand to 
 which the natives may appeal, when injured or oppressed ? 
 How can a native afford to send a Vakeel or represen- 
 tative to Calcutta ? How difficult he will find it to have 
 his petition properly presented. The collector will then 
 be written to, and he being all-powerful, and on the spot, 
 may procure counter-petitions, misrepresenting the suf- 
 ferer. Ought not a presidency to be near, which can 
 obtain correct information, to prevent an iutemperate 
 young man from involving the Company in a war, or 
 to suppress an insurrection, by immediate redress ? 
 Mr. Mill very justly observes, " the grand general evil 
 is, that in proportion as territory augments, and with it
 
 MISCELLANEA. 105 
 
 the amount and complexity of the business which the 
 administration involves, it becomes more and more im- 
 possible for the superintending power to take securities, 
 that the business of the government shall not be negli- 
 gently or corruptly performed ; since besides the inability 
 of attention to extend itself minutely beyond a limited 
 range of affairs, distance in the eyes of government 
 gradually weakens the powers, and at least annihilates 
 a great portion of them." 
 
 An objection may be made to the expence, but let it 
 be considered that money expended upon public works 
 remains in the country, and comes back to the treasury. 
 The men employed may be under the direction of en- 
 gineer officers, and exercised once or twice a week 
 with sticks ; so they will serve as a corps de reserve, or 
 recruits for the army may be taken from these workmen. 
 In my opinion a portion of the revenue of a nation 
 ought always to be appropriated to public improvements; 
 Bonaparte evinced the advantages a people derives 
 from judicious public expenditures on improvements. 
 Would the nation have been richer if these had not 
 been undertaken and accomplished? Public improve- 
 ments are actually net gain, and they excite national 
 satisfaction and gratitude to the government. 
 
 A new city or town is easily made in India. The 
 officers of the government, and those resorting to them 
 for business or for amusement, by their expences, soon 
 form a collection of inhabitants ; there may be barracks 
 erected for invalid Sepoys. The stock-holders of go- 
 vernment's debt ought to have the option of being paid 
 at the interior cities, whereby they would save the 
 
 o
 
 106 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 expence and risk of employing agents to receive their 
 dividends in Calcutta. It is injurious in a financial 
 point of view, to have all payments made in Calcutta. 
 I have known interest in Calcutta 3 or 4 per cent, per 
 annum, and at Patna above 12 per cent.; and property 
 sold in the latter place, at 50 per cent, below the original 
 cost. See the late accounts of interest in Hyderabad. 
 The importance of having central towns, is acknowledged 
 in the United States of America ; were a proposition 
 made to fix the general government at New Orleans, 
 it would be received with astonishment. If the expence 
 of making a central presidency for the ceded and con- 
 quered provinces, should be an objection, a tax like 
 Octroys on the continent of Europe, on articles brought 
 into the town, or a tobacco tax, or a house tax, would 
 support it. 
 
 Roads would of course be made to facilitate in- 
 tercourse with the city or town, and to enable it to 
 send succours expeditiously to the frontiers. At pre- 
 sent, our Governor-General in Council is about 1500 
 miles from our forces on the Punjab ; what a vast ex- 
 tent of country might be desolated by an enemy's army 
 after one victory, before any measures could be adopted 
 to check his progress. 
 
 The Company seem to have forgotten the dangers to 
 which they were exposed, when Cheyt Sing, the Rajah 
 of Benares, was in supposed rebellion ; a general ex- 
 plosion had almost ensued ; fortunately he was not pre- 
 pared for resistance ; the Europeans between Benares 
 and Patna, were all intercepted or killed : it were 
 needless to describe our insecurity at that period, I
 
 MISCELLANEA. 107 
 
 mention it only that timely precautions may be adopted 
 to avert future danger and destruction. 
 
 The Company ought also to consider that a period 
 of more than fifty years has made a great change in the 
 character of their native subjects. The Company ob- 
 tained its first territories by siding with hostile nabobs, 
 who were contending for supremacy, when the empire 
 of the great Mogul was tumbling into fragments : our 
 cannon, grape, musquetry, and bayonets, thrown into 
 either scale, made it preponderate. Since that the 
 overthrow of the Nabob of Arcot, of Tippo, of the 
 Peshwa, of Cheyt Sing, of the great Mogul, &c. and 
 our constant encroachments, have excited a general 
 apprehension, modern revolutions also, with which 
 foreigners make them acquainted, have a powerful 
 effect upon their minds. I will now submit to perusal, 
 an extract from an officer's sketches of India, which the 
 Edinburgh Reviewer terms monitory, and somewhat 
 alarming suggestions. 
 
 " Long after our interest in Calcutta, as English- 
 men, may have ceased, by the entire loss of our 
 Indian possessions, as governors, it will continue a 
 populous, powerful, and wealthy city. Although we 
 do not admit of colonization in India, a class of natives 
 connected with us by blood, language, habit, education, 
 and religion, is rapidly growing into consequence, in 
 point of numbers, possessions, awakened desires, en- 
 larged and enlightened views. They are already the 
 small merchants, the shop-keepers, the citizens in fact 
 of our presidencies. They are shut out from the service 
 of the Company, but that they are the subjects of the 
 Company, must never be forgotten. The British blood
 
 10 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 and the native blood in their veins, are alike hateful to 
 them, for the Englishman and the Hindoo alike disclaim 
 them ; but as the light of knowledge beams upon them, 
 they see and feel that " honor and shame from no con- 
 dition rise." The revolution of a few short years will 
 fearfully increase their numbers, and if the moral and 
 mental improvement of this class, now reckoning in it 
 many men of talent, integrity, and piety, keep pace 
 with that increase, we must not expect, nor ought we 
 to wish, that they should look upon themselves as out- 
 casts, without a country they dare call their own, without 
 the common privileges of free born men, without eligi- 
 bility to honor, wealth or usefulness, or to any share in 
 the government of themselves." 
 
 Even the Hindoos are shaking off their religious 
 prejudices. The publications of the Brahmin, Ram- 
 mohun Roy, which I have met with since my arrival 
 here, have quite surprised me, and caused a train of 
 very serious considerations : the Seiks are the most 
 powerful nation on our borders, and a great portion of 
 the Hindoos are become Seiks. Even in Cheyt Sing's 
 time, there was a great number of them in the Bahar 
 province. I chanced to ascertain this, more than thirty 
 years ago, as a nocturnal meeting of them in Patna, 
 caused me some alarm. 
 
 That a Brahmin should be master of Hebrew, Latin, 
 and Greek, besides the Asiatic languages, and that he 
 should from Shanscrit authors, demonstrate that poly- 
 theism was a corruption from ancient theism ; and that 
 he should publish these doctrines, and hold a controversy 
 with a missionary, upon the tenets of the Christian reli- 
 gion, cause astonishment.
 
 MISCELLANEA. 109 
 
 When superstition loses its influence, the moral man 
 expands his views, enlarges his intelligence, and imbibes 
 political sentiments unfavourable to the sovereignty of 
 conquerors living at a distance. Patriotism is a word 
 unknown amongst them ; but it will sooner or later be 
 felt, and a synonimous word created. A statesman 
 will, therefore, endeavour to unite the natives by a 
 common interest ; to give them a permanent tenure in 
 the land ; to have a national debt and currency pos- 
 sessed by them ; and to render them secure and pros- 
 perous, are obvious modes to create attachment and 
 co-operation. The happy are naturally averse to change. 
 
 Thirty years ago, I strenuously but unsuccessfully 
 endeavoured to obtain permission for British merchants 
 to trade to the Company's territories, and to have the 
 freight of ships (then exorbitantly high,) lowered : 
 with much satisfaction I now find both these impedi- 
 ments to exports removed. 
 
 Perhaps there is a latent policy which influences the 
 advocates for the Ryotwarree System, viz. the belief 
 that a whole people reduced to the commonalty, cannot 
 have wealth or arms to subvert the government. They 
 should remember that, "furor arma ministrat}" that a 
 nation so reduced is ready to unite with any invader. 
 When all the people have one resentment and one in- 
 dignation, and a consciousness that they must benefit 
 by any change, all the passions unite to surmount that 
 of fear. But when a people has a class of landholders, 
 of manufacturers, merchants, &c. they wish for peace, 
 and will fly to arms for the preservation of their pro- 
 perty. It has been well said of knowledge, " emollil 
 mores nee sinit esse feros."
 
 110 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 The Sepoys will be reluctant troops when required 
 to uphold the government under the Ryotwarree 
 System ; but, as sons of Mocurrery Zemindars, they 
 will be zealous combatants, for their parents' prosperity. 
 
 As it is become the policy of the British Cabinet to 
 promote the blessings of freedom, which Britons enjoy, 
 and to extend commercial intercourse to those colonies 
 which have established their emancipation, it should be 
 expected that jealousy, rivalship, envy, and animosity 
 will induce European potentates to attempt the aliena- 
 tion of our extensive territories in Asia. Do we not 
 perceive their agents in Egypt, in Persia, and in the 
 frontiers of India, insinuating themselves into influence 
 with their rulers, and introducing modern discipline 
 into their armies. How to retaliate is the great 
 embarrassment of these European potentates ; they 
 are annually made acquainted with the superiority 
 of the British navy in the printed documents; their 
 eyes, therefore, are turned to our Asiatic possession, by 
 a laud rout through the conquered provinces, and their 
 thoughts will naturally be turned to every means whereby 
 the natives may be exasperated and induced to revolt. 
 When 1 even imagine that a Ryotwarree settlement 
 will be attempted to be introduced into the conquered 
 and ceded provinces, the inevitable insurrection of the 
 turbulent, impetuous, valiant Rajepoots, &c. presents 
 itself. Awful warnings, by high authority, have been 
 solemnly given, and the most intelligent companies' 
 servants, who have been through our frontier territories, 
 confirm these predictions : Verbum sat est sapienti. 
 Beware. When the natives, subjected to us, shall 
 feel an interest in our preservation, we have nothirtg to
 
 MISCELLANEA. Ill 
 
 apprehend. Let this emphatic expression of Livy, then, 
 be applicable to the British : 
 
 " Universes bonum animum habere jussit; venisse 
 in eos populi Romani potestatem, qui beneficio quam 
 metu obligare homines malit, exterasque gentes fide 
 ac societate junctas habere quam tristi subjectas servitio. 
 
 LIBER xxvi. 
 
 POSTCRIPT. 
 
 IF I have betrayed too much anxiety, let allowance be 
 made for old age, which has witnessed so much war, 
 and so many unanticipated revolutions, which have 
 severed distant colonies from the most powerful empires. 
 Should negligence of style and carelessness of conca- 
 tenation be observed, let the want of aid and the ur- 
 gency of the occasion plead my apology. Obeying the 
 impulse of zeal, and submitting to the dictates of duty, 
 I have hastily written at this eventful crisis, only for 
 those who are immediately interested, and who are 
 acquainted with the subject. 
 
 Had experience invalidated my former suggestions, 
 I should have candidly retracted my errors ; but as 
 subsequent facts have strengthened what was before 
 theoretical, I now close my career as I commenced it, 
 and devoutly hope that my endeavours may not be in- 
 effectual. The longer a decision is postponed, the 
 more will the natives be in a state of uncertainty and 
 apprehensive of the worst. Of the humane intentions 
 and of the luminous abilities of those who differ iu 
 opinion with me I am fully conscious; nor would I,
 
 112 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 relying solely upon my practical knowledge, have 
 ventured to cope with their powers ; but having my 
 reasoning corroborated by revered authorities, I felt 
 it incumbent upon me to break silence, in defence 
 of what I deem the great desideratum the sine qu& 
 non for the tranquillity, security, and prosperity of 
 Asia, who may long continue to pour wealth into the 
 lap of Great Britain in requital for a permanent system. 
 
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