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Darjeeling.

Little is known of the mineral resources of Darjeeling. Petroleum and coal are spoken of as existing; copper and limestone are known to exist. In the Western Dooars anthracite is known, and coal is believed to exist. We shall learn more of the mineral resources of this division now that a geological survey of the Sub-Himalayan country has been sanctioned.

Orissa.

In the Chittagong division traces of coal have been discovered in the Cox's Bazaar sub-division and in Chittagong. the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Iron ore has been discovered in the Lalmye Hills in Tipperah. Throughout the delta and alluvial country of Orissa there are neither mines nor minerals. Inland, and in the hill tracts, the prospects are more promising. Coal resources are believed to exist in the vicinity of Naraje near Cuttack, and the sandstone formations in the Khoordah subdivision of Pooree indicate the probability of coal being discoverable there. The Taljharee coal-fields in the Tributary Mehals are favorably situated within a few miles of the Brahminee River, where water carriage is available during the rains, and experiments are now being effected there by Government. There are valuable beds of iron ore in many parts of the tributary states, and particularly in Taljharee, where iron and coal are found side by side, and in Dhenkanal and Keonjhur, where rich iron ore is found and worked pretty extensively by the native methods. The hill streams of Dhenkanal and Keonjhur yield gold dust in small quantities in the river sand, but the produce has not been so far remunerative.

There are no mineral resources whatever in the low-lying alluvial tract comprising the Rajshahye, Presidency, and Dacca divisions.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE CIVIL ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL.

Bengal.

Ir was in the year 1640 that two ships from England to Bengal first Early possessions of the British in opened the trade of the East India Company to this part of India under a patent for exemption from customs obtained from the Emperor Shah Jehan through the good service of a Surgeon named Broughton, sent to attend the Emperor's daughter from Surat.

In 1698 the Prince Azeem-u-Shah, grandson of Aurungzebe and Soubahdar of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, allowed the Company's Agents to purchase the talookdar's right to the three villages of Calcutta, Sootanutty, and Govindpore, subject to Calcutta and adjacent villages-1698. an annual revenue of Rs. 495. The transactions of the Company during this period were entirely commercial, and up to 1707, when Calcutta was declared a Presidency, it was dependent upon Madras, where there was a fort and garrison which the Company had not been allowed to maintain in Bengal. Moreover, although in 1717 the United Company obtained a royal grant from the Emperor Ferokhseer granting them, besides privileges of trade, permission to purchase the talook daree of 38 additional villages adjacent, subject to an annual revenue of Rs. 8,121, no independent authority was conveyed to the Company, nor does any appear to have been claimed.

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The treaty with Seraj-ud- Dowlah in February 1757, after the recapture of Calcutta, by the fourth article of which the Company were "allowed to fortify Calcutta in such manner as they might esteem proper," and by the fifth of which it is stipulated "that siccas be coined at Alinagur (Calcutta) in the same manner as at Moorshedabad,' with a general promise of amity, may be considered to have first established the Company's territorial character in Bengal. On the 4th June 1757, moreover, by a treaty entered into with Jaffer Ally Khan this agreement was confirmed, and the Company's zemindary extended six hundred yards without the ditch of Calcutta, and over the 24-Pergunnahs south of Calcutta as far as Calpee.

24-Pergunnahs-1757.

In the treaty concluded with the Nawab Meer Mahomed Cossim Ally Khan on the 27th November 1760, it was agreed that Cossim should

Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong1760.

succeed as Nawab of the Soubahdary of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa; that the English army should be ready to assist him in the management of affairs, and that the lands of the chaklas (districts) of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong, should be assigned for all the Company's charges. A complete and full cession of these three districts was then effected and confirmed again by Jaffer Ally Khan in the treaty for his reinstatement dated 10th July 1763.

After the expulsion of Cossim Ally Khan and the decisive battle of Buxar, the civil authority over Bengal, Behar, and Orissa,* was con

GRANT OF DEWANNY.

August 12th, 1765. Administration, however, carried on by native agency until the Company stood forth as Dewan in 1772.

ferred in perpetuity on the East India Company by the Emperor Shah Alum, under a royal grant in August 1765. The Nawab of Bengal recognized this grant under an agreement dated 30th September in the same year, and consented to accept a fixed stipend for the maintenance of himself and his household.

In 1766 Lord Clive, then President of the Council of Fort William, took his place as Dewan, and in concert with the Nawab, who sat as Nazim, opened the pooneah, or ceremonial of commencing the annual collections in durbar, held at Motijeel, near Moorshedabad.

But though the civil and military power of the country and the resources for maintaining it were assumed on the part of the East India Company, it was not thought prudent to vest the immediate management of the revenue, or the administration of justice, in the European servants. There was a resident at this time at the Nawab's Court who inspected the management of the Naib Dewan, and a chief who superintended the collections of the province of Behar under the immediate management of a distinguished native, Schitab Roy; but with these exceptions there were no other Covenanted servants of the Company in the interior except those who were administering the zemindary lands of Calcutta and the 24-Pergunnahs, and the ceded districts of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong, which had again been confirmed to this Company in perpetuity by a royal grant.

In 1769 Supervisors were appointed by Mr. Hastings, with powers of superintending the native officers employed in collecting the revenue or administering justice in different parts of the country; and councils with superior authority were in 1770 established at Moorshedabad and Patna. The Supervisors Supervisors-1769. were furnished with detailed instruc

tions for obtaining an account of the provinces; the state, produce, and capacity of the lands; the amount of the revenues, the cesses or arbitrary taxes, and of all demands whatsoever which are made on the cultivators; the manner of collecting them, and the gradual rise of every new impost; the regulation of commerce, and the administration of justice. The information elicited by these

The Orissa of the last century included only the district of Midnapore and a part of Hooghly, or more accurately the tract of country lying between the rivers Suburnorekha and Roopnarain. Orissa Proper was conquered and annexed from the Mahrattas by Lord Wellesley in 1803.

inquiries showed the internal government to be in a state of profound disorder, and the people to be suffering great oppression. Neverthelss seven years elapsed from the acquisition of the Dewanny before the Government deemed itself competent to remedy these defects. It was not till 1772 that the Court of Directors resolved to "stand forth "as Dewan, and by the agency of the Company's servants to take upon "themselves the entire care and management of the revenues.

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By the adoption of a plan then proposed by Mr. Hastings and four members of his council, the institution of the internal government were established as follows:

Mr. Hastings' Regulations-1772.

In the Revenue Department at the Presidency a Board of Revenue was appointed, consisting of the President and Members of Council, with an Accountant-General and assistants. The exchequer

REVENUE.

Supervisors designated Collectors.

and treasury were removed from Moorshedabad to Calcutta. In respect to the provinces it was resolved that the Supervisors should now be designated Collectors, with each of whom a native officer, chosen by the Board and styled Dewan, was joined in the superintendence of the revenues.

JUDICIAL.
Collectors preside over Civil and Revenue
Courts.

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Under the regulations framed for the Judicial Department, two courts were instituted for each provincial division or collectorship, one by the name of Dewanny or "Civil Court, for the cognizance of civil "causes; the other named Fouzdary or Criminal Court, for the trial of crimes and misdemeanours." The Collector presided over the Civil Court attended by the provincial native Dewan and other officers.

Native Criminal Courts.

In the Criminal Court the kazee and mooftee of the district, and two moulvees, sat to expound the Mahomedan law, and to determine how far delinquents were guilty of its violation; but it was the Collector's duty to attend to the proceedings of this court so far as to see that all necessary witnesses were summoned and examined, and that the decision passed was fair and impartial. The Collector had no further concern in the criminal administration. Appeals from these courts were allowed to two superior courts established at the chief seat of government,—one under the denomination of Dewanny Sudder Sudder Court. Adawlut, or Chief Court of Civil Judicature; the other, the Nizamut Sudder Adawlut, or Chief Court of Criminal Justice.

The chief Civil Court consisted of the President and Members of Council, assisted by native officers. In the Chief Criminal Court a Chief Officer of justice presided, appointed by the Nazim, and assisted by the head kazee and mooftee and three eminent moulvees. Over this latter Court, however, a control was vested in the President and Council, similar to what was exercised by the Collectors in the provinces.

A short experience, however, showed that the superintendence over criminal justice, when exercised by the President, involved too heavy

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duties, and in October 1775 the Court of Nizamut Adawlut was moved back to Moorshedabad and placed under the control of the well known Mahomed Reza Khan, who was appointed Naib Nazim.

Collectors withdrawn.

In the meantime (1774) the European Collectors were also recalled from the provinces and native aumils were appointed in their stead. A new plan of police was introduced. Native officers styled fouzdars were appointed to the fourteen districts or local jurisdictions into which. Bengal was divided. The superintendence of the collection of the revenue, removed from the Collectors, was vested in six Provincial Councils, which were established at Calcutta, Burdwan, Dacca, Moorshedabad, Dinagepore, and Patna. The administration of civil justice was on the same principle transferred to the aumils.

Provincial Revenue Councils estab

lished-1774.

Provincial Civil Judges established in

Vital changes were, however, speedily effected in these arrangements. The constitution of the Dewanny Adawlut was transformed by the establishment in 1780 in each of the six great provincial divisions of a court of justice distinct from, and independent of, the Revenue Council. dependent of Revenue Courts-1780. Over this court a Covenanted servant presided, whose jurisdiction extended over all civil and rent cases. These six divisions were in their civil aspect augmented shortly to eighteen, in consequence of the inconvenience experienced from the too extensive jurisdiction of the six before instituted. The Judges of these courts were wholly unconnected with the Revenue Department except in the four frontier districts of Chittra (or Hazareebaugh), Bhaugulpore, Islamabad (or Chittagong), and Rungpore, where for local reasons the offices of Judge, Magistrate, and Collector, were vested in the same person, but with a provision that the judicial authority should be considered distinct from, and independent of, revenue functions. Simultaneously with the extension of the civil courts, the Provincial Councils were abolished, and all the revenue affairs of the provinces brought down gradually to the Presidency, there to be administered by five of the most able and experienced of the civil servants, under the designation of a "Committee of Revenue." One President of each Provincial Council was, however, to remain officiating as Collector under the Committee of Revenue until further orders, as likewise were the four Judge-Magistrate-Collectors, who had been separately stationed in the frontier and least civilized districts.

Provincial Revenue Councils abolished; Collectorships reinstituted-1781.

Civil Judges vested with executive

magisterial powers-1781.

The establishment of fouzdars and tannahdars, introduced in 1774, was also abolished in 1781, and the eighteen civil Judges 66 were invested with the power, as Magistrates, of apprehending dacoits and persons charged with the commission of any crime or acts of violence within their respective jurisdictions." They were not, however, to try or punish such persons, but "were to send them immediately to the daroga of the nearest Fouzdary Court, with a charge in writing setting forth the grounds on which they had been

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