Book V.

1772.

The sense which the Directors entertained of the vices which up to this time had stained their administration in India, is recorded thus: "We wish," (these are the words of their letter to the President and Council at Fort William, dated the 7th of April, 1773,) "we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt made by us and our administrations at your Presidency, for the reforming of abuses, has rather increased them-and added to the miseries of the country we are anxious to protect and cherish. The truth of this observation appears fully in the late appointment of supervisors and chiefs-instituted, as they were, to give relief to the industrious tenants, to improve and enlarge our investments, to destroy monopolies, and retrench expenses, the end has, by no means, been answerable to the institution. Are not the tenants, more than ever, oppressed and wretched? Are our investments improved? Has not the raw silk and cocoons been raised upon us fifty per cent. in price? We can hardly say what has not been made a monopoly. And as to the expenses of your Presidency, they are at length settled to a degree we are no longer able to support. These facts (for such they are) should have been stated to us, as capital reasons, why neither our orders of 1771, nor indeed any regulations whatever, could be carried into execution. But, perhaps, as this would have proved too much, it was not suggested to us; for nothing could more plainly indicate a state of anarchy, and that there was no government existing, in our servants in Bengal.... When oppression pervades the whole country; when youths have been suffered with impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the natives; and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us, or yourselves, that native merchants do not come forward to contract with the Company; that the manufactures find their way through foreign channels; or that our investments are at once enormously dear, and of a debased quality.—It is evident, then, that the evils which have been so destructive to us, lie too deep for any partial plans to reach or correct. It is, therefore, our resolution to aim at the root of those evils." The opinion which was formed of Mr. Hastings, leads them to express their expectation of assistance from him in these reforms, in the following terms: "Our President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this, we are sensible, much will depend. And here we take occasion to indulge the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of Coromandel, in constructing, with equal labour and ability, the plan which has so much improved our investments there; and as we are persuaded he will persevere, in the same laudable pursuit, through every

branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may depend on the steady sup- CHAP. I. port and favour of his employers." *

1772.

The double, or rather the clandestine administration; in name, and in ostent State of the by the Nabob, in reality by the Company; which had been recommended as government in Bengal. ingenious policy by Clive, and admired as such by his employers and successors; had contributed greatly to enhance the difficulties in which by assumption of the government the English were involved. All the vices of the ancient polity were saved from reform: and all the evils of a divided authority were superinduced. The revenues were under a complicated, wasteful, and oppressive economy; the lands being partly managed by the shicdars, or agents of the collectors, partly farmed from year to year, partly held by Zemindars, and Talookdars, responsible for a certain revenue. The administration of justice, of which, under the military and fiscal Governors of the Mogul provinces, the criminal part belonged to the Nazim, or military Governor, the civil to the Duan, or fiscal Governor, was left, as a heavy and unproductive toil, in the hands of the Nabob; who, being totally without power, was totally unable to maintain the authority of his tribunals against the masters of the country: and the people were given up to oppression. †

The Company and their servants were little satisfied, from the beginning, with the produce of the duannee; and soon began to be little satisfied with the expedients adopted by Clive for ensuring a faithful collection. In the month of August, 1769, before the close of Mr. Verelst's administration, a supplementary security was devised: It was held expedient that servants of the Company should be stationed in appropriate districts, throughout the whole country, for the purpose of superintending the native officers; both in the collection of the revenue, and, what was very much blended with it, the administration of justice: These functionaries received the title of Supervisors: And, in the next year, was added a second supplementary security; two councils, with authority over the supervisors, one at Moorshedabad, and another at Patna.

Among the duties recommended to the supervisors, one was, to collect a body of information, with respect to the amount of the revenues; with respect to the state, produce, and capabilities of the great source of the revenue, the lands; with respect to the cesses or arbitrary taxes; the whole catalogue of imposts laid upon the cultivator; the manner of collecting them, and the origin and

* Minutes of Evidence on Mr. Hastings' Trial, p. 966.

+ This is expressly stated by Hastings, and the Committee of Revenue, in their letter of the 3d of Nov. 1772, in the Sixth Report of the Committee of Secrecy, in!773.

1772.

Book V. progress of all the modern exactions: And also with respect to the regulations of commerce; and the administration of justice. The reports of the supervisors, intended to convey the information which they collected under these heads, represent the government as having attained the last stage of oppressiveness and barbarism. "The Nazims exacted what they could from the Zemindars, and great farmers of the revenue; whom they left at liberty to plunder all below; reserving to themselves the prerogative of plundering them in their turn, when they were supposed to have enriched themselves with the spoils of the country." The Select Committee of the House of Commons, in 1810, quoting this passage, remark; "The whole system thus resolved itself, on the part of the public officers, into habitual extortion and injustice; which produced, on that of the cultivator, the natural consequences-concealment and evasion, by which government was defrauded of a considerable part of its just demands.” With respect to the administration of justice, the supervisors reported, course was every where suspended: But every man exercised it, who had the power of compelling others to submit to his decisions." The Committee of the House of Commons, whose remark on the state of the fiscal collections has just been adduced, subjoin to this quotation, which fills up the picture; “Seven years had elapsed, from the acquisition of the duannee, without the government deeming itself competent to remedy these defects." *

"That the regular

The Company Grievously disappointed in their expectations of treasure, the Directors openly assume resolved to break through the scheme of clandestinity; so far at least as to take the functions of Duan: con- into their own hands the collection as well as the disbursement of the revenues. sequences. In their letter to the President and Council of Fort William, dated the 28th of August, 1771, they declared their resolution, "To stand forth as Duan" (so they were pleased to express it), "and by the agency of the Company's servants to take upon themselves the entire care and management of the revenues." The change was enormous, which it was the nature of this decree to produce, among the people whom they ruled. It was a revolution, much greater, probably, than any previous conjuncture, than even the change from Hindu to Mahomedan masters, had been sufficient to create. The transition from Hindu to Mahomedan masters had only changed the hands by which the sword was wielded, and favours were dispensed; the machine of government, still more the texture of society, underwent feeble alterations; and the civil part of the administration was, from conveniency, left almost wholly in the

*Fifth Report of the Select Committee, 1810, p. 5.

1772.

hands of Hindus. A total change in the management of the revenues more CHAp. I. deeply affected the condition, individually and collectively, of the people of India than it is easy for the European reader even to conceive: It was an innovation by which the whole property of the country, and along with it the administration of justice were placed upon a new foundation: It was a change far greater than if all the existing tenures of land in England, whether temporary or perpetual, were all at once abolished; and new tenures of a very different description, new possessors in many instances, and a new administration of justice, were introduced.

little known

Of the nature of this change, the Directors appear to have had no thought Consequences dr conception. As if the measure which they proposed had been without conse- to Directors. quences, they satisfied themselves with enjoining its execution; and consigned to their servants the task (of which, however, they did not much complain) of carrying into effect a change of government so momentous, without one word of instructions. Those servants, though more acquainted with the practical difficulties which they would meet, in establishing the new system of finance, appear to have thought nearly as little as their honourable masters, of the great changes, with regard to the people, which it was calculated to produce. With great alacrity, they addressed themselves to the enterprise. Mr. Hastings succeeded to the chair on the 13th of April, 1772; and on the 16th the Council deemed themselves ripe for the following important resolution: That they Mode adopted would let the lands in farm, and for long leases; because it is the most simple the functions for performing mode, and best adapted to a government like that of the Company, which of Duan: 1. in cannot enter into the minute details of the collections; because every mode of of the revenue. agency by which the rents could be received would be attended with perplexed and intricate accounts, with embezzlement of the revenue, and oppression of the people; and because any mode of collecting the revenues which would trench upon the time of the Governor and Council, would deprive them of a portion

* The Committee of Circuit, in entering upon their task, remark a still more extraordinary failure in the sagacity of the Directors, who did not even foresee, that their new resolution was totally inconsistent with their former regulations, and gave no authority for abolishing them. "They have been pleased," say the Committee," to direct a total change of system, and have left the plan and execution of it to the discretion of the Board, without any formal repeal of the Regulations which they had before framed and adapted to another system-the abolition of which necessarily includes that of its subsidiary institutions, unless they shall be found to coincide with the new." Extract, Proceedings of the Committee of Circuit, dated Cossimbuzar, 28th July, 1772, inserted in the Sixth Report, Committee of Secrecy 1773, p. 21.

the collection

Book V. of what was already too little for the laborious duties which they had to

1772.

perform.*

On the 14th of May the operations were planned. It was decreed, That the lands should be let for a period of five years: That a Committee of the Board, consisting of the President and four Members, should perform the local operations, by circuit through the country: That the servants of the Company who superintended the business of collection in the several districts, and who had hitherto been distinguished by the title of supervisors, should henceforth be denominated collectors: That a native, under the title of duan, should in each district be joined with the collector, both to confirm and to check: That no banyan, or servant of a collector, should be permitted to farm any portion of the revenue; because with the servant of a collector no man would dare to become a competitor: And, as presents to the collectors from the Zemindars and other middlemen had been abolished, so all acceptance of presents, by such middlemen, from the ryots, and all other modes of extortion, should be carefully prevented. Some precautions were taken against the accumulation of debt, which swelled at exorbitant interest, rarely less than three, often as much as fifteen per cent. per month, upon the ryots, as well as the different orders of middlemen: The collectors were forbidden to lend, or to permit their banyans or servants to lend, to the middlemen; and the middlemen or agents to lend to the ryots: But the Governor and Council express their regret, that loans and exorbitant interest were an evil which it was not in their power wholly to repress.

The objects which in these regulations the servants of the Company professed to have in view, were; to simplify accounts; to render uniform the mode of exaction; and to establish fixed and accurate rules. The Committee of Circuit, with whom, though a Member, Mr. Hastings did not proceed, first began to receive proposals at Kishenagur: But the terms which were offered were in general so unsatisfactory both in form and amount, that the Committee deemed * These reasons are assigned in the Consultation 14th May, Report, ut supra.

+ The reason they assign for this change of title is worth transcribing. "The term "Supervisor' was properly suited to the original commission, which was to examine, inspect, and report. This office has been long since annulled; but we apprehend that the continuance of the name, and of many of the residents, in the same stations which they now fill as collectors, may have misled even our Honourable Masters, who were never regularly advised of the change, into the opinion that the first commission still subsisted." So much for the care of instructing, and the accurate information of, the Honourable Directors.

Consultation, 14th May, ut supra.