of the law. The Oude Government therefore suffered by di plomatic quibbles; the Oude subjects by revenue ones. In each case the weakest have gone to the wall. The result is before our eyes; the remedy is also in our hands. No one can deny that we are now authorized by treaty to assume the management of the distracted portions of the kingdom.-All are more or less distracted and misgoverned. Let the management of all be assumed under some such rules as those which were laid down by Lord W. Bentinck. Let the administration of the country, as far as possible, be native. Let not a rupee come into the Company's coffers. Let Oude be at last governed, not for one man, the King, but for him and his people.

We must be brief in the explanation of the plan we would recommend.

The King has made himself a cypher; he has let go the reins of Government; let us take them up. He should be prevented from marring what he cannot or will not manage. In every eastern court the Sovereign is every thing or nothing. Mahommed Amjud Ali has given unequivocal proof that he is of the second class; there can therefore be no sort of injustice in confirming his own decree against himself, and setting him aside. He should be treated with respect, but restricted to his palace and its precincts. The Resident should be Minister, not only in fact, but in name. Let it not be said that he works in the dark; but give him the responsible charge of the country, and make him answerable to the British Government for its good or ill management. While his personal demeanour to the King must be deferential, he should be no more under his authority than the Commissioner of Delhi is under the Great Mogul. Divide the country into five districts; in each, place a British officer, as Superintendent, who shall receive appeals against the Native officers. Abolish, in toto, the farming system. Give as quickly as possible a light assessment for five years, fixed as far as possible by the people themselves; that is, let the one-and-a-quarter million, (or thereabouts,) the country may be supposed able to bear, be subdivided in a great assembly of the people among the five districts; and then let the District, Pergunnah, and Village quotas be similarly told off, under the eye of British Superintendents.

Due consideration must be given to the circumstances of all and to the privileges that may have arisen from long exemption, and it must be remembered that one village may be ruined by paying half what another, in apparently similar circumstances, can easily afford; let the rich and powerful pay as well as the poor and weak. Reference, must be had, and some considera

tion granted to past payments and past privileges as well as to present condition. Perfect equalization cannot be expected at

once.

While the first arrangements are in progress, a strong military force should be at hand; and the first act of recusancy should be severely punished. The dismissal of the rural armies should be effected, and all forts belonging to notorious persons should be dismantled. Where possible, an amnesty should be given for the past. No individual, whom it may be possible to reclaim, should be branded. The motives that had driven men to the bush should be considered, and penalty bonds having been taken, they should be received and treated as reformed members of society. Under firm but liberal treatment, many a supposed desperado would retrieve his reputation. Speedy and severe examples should be made of Amils and others convicted of fraud, extortion, or other oppression; and it should be early and distinctly understood that no position will screen malefactors or defaulters. The rule will disgust a few, but will delight the many.

The revenue settlement is the first great question in all eastern countries; when it is well effected, all remaining work is comparatively easy. At the risk then of being set down by men who deal in forms, rather than in realities, as a very unsound lawgiver, we say, first settle the revenue question satisfactorily, and the path of amendment will be smooth. Let men's minds be relieved as to the past and the future, and they will readily settle down for the present. Three months, at the utmost, should suffice to make the summary settlement we propose; no niceties need be entered into. Let the assessment be light, and let every man, high and low, who has to pay, have his quota distinctly registered, whether it be in cash or in kind; and let prompt and severe punishment follow the earliest instances of infringement of recorded agreements.

Let a date be fixed, anterior to which no Government claims for revenue shall be advanced. Let it also be at once promulgated that no civil case will be attended to of more than twelve, or at the utmost of twenty year's date; and no police case of more than three; and that all claims must be filed within one year of the date of the introduction of the British rule. All these cases should be made over to Punchayets, superintended by the best men in the land. Brief reasons of decision in each case should be entered in a book, and copies of the same sent weekly to the Superintendent. For ordinary civil, fiscal, and police duties, Courts should be established or old ones confirmed in the several zillahs: punchayets should be encouraged; honest

members of such assemblies, should be honored and favoured, and hishonest ones discountenanced and disgraced.

What a change would such a system, honestly and ably worked out, effect within a single twelvemonth! It is delightful to think of it. We see the difficulties in the way, but difficulties are not impossibilities. No plan is all smooth, no measure of amelioration is without obstacles. Our main difficulty would be to select Superintendents of sufficient experience, possessing at the same time energy and ability, strength of body and of mind, to face the chaos that would at first be presented them. Such men are, however to be found. They must be paid and liberally too, not in the Scinde and Saugor fashion. It would be the worst of all economy to employ men who would not remain at least five years to work out the primary scheme.

Our plan involves the employment of every present Oude official, willing to remain, and able to perform the duties that would be required of him. The majority of the present Amils would resign as would most of the officers about the Court. All valid tenures of land would of course be upheld, and all superannuated officials having claims to pension, would be considered. It would be desirable to retain the services of one or two respectable men, to assist the Resident and form with him a Court of Appeal from the Superintendent's decrees.

When matters were thus put in train, village boundaries should be defined; a Revenue survey, and a settlement for thirty, or even fifty, years should follow.

We do not anticipate the necessity of any permanent increase of establishment. If Mr. Maddock's estimate is correct; half the sum now plundered by the Amils and the Ministers would amply remunerate all the requisite officials.

The primary arrangements would probably require cash; but as the improvement of the country would be secured, an Oude loan of a crore of rupees might be raised, which the increase of cultivation and general amelioration of the state would enable us easily to pay off in ten or fifteen years. We repeat that the assessment should be light. The people as well as the Court should benefit by improvement, if they are expected to further it. There should be a liberal allowance for the King-twenty, thirty or even fifty lakhs per annum might, as the revenues increased, be allowed. He should be furnished, to his heart's content, with silver-sticks, but very scantily with matchlocks. The King would be dissatisfied, let him remain so. He is not

In every community there are individuals whom disputants will readily receive as arbitrators: such men are usually elected, Sur-Punch or President, by the members chosen.

particularly well pleased just now, and, so long as we act honestly, the state of his temper is not of much consequence. In whatever spirit he might meet our proposed radical reform he would find few to sympathize in his dissatisfaction. His brothers, uncles, and cousins would be delighted with the change.

The guaranteed would be in extacies. Almost all others would rejoice at the reformation. The people of Oude-the men who recruit our beautiful Regiments"-would bless John

Company.

66

The scheme we have here indicated rather than detailed is not for a day, nor for any specific term of years. It is refined cruelty to raise the cup to the lip and then to dash it away. Let us not deal with Oude as we have done with Hyderabad and Nagpore. The kings of Oude, generally, have, as rulers, been weighed and found wanting. His present Majesty has habitually disregarded the spirit and letter of the terms concluded between his father and the British Government. The family must be placed beyond the power of doing further mischief. We have not been guiltless; in repenting of the past, let us look honestly to the future; for once let us remember the people, the gentles, the nobles, the royal family, and not legislate merely for the king.

If the Oude Residency could, with honor, be withdrawn, or if we believed that there was a possibility of the Government of the king holding together for a month, when abandoned by the British Government, we should at once advocate giving his Majesty the opportunity of trying to stand on his own legs; but knowing the thing to be impossible, we have offered the only practicable remedy for the ills that afflict the country, and shall be delighted to see it, or some such scheme, speedily carried out. This scheme is given in the rough. We have not even attempted to round it off; the principle is all we advocate. The details may be indefinitely improved, but whatever outcry or opposition our sentiments may elicit, we sit down satisfied with the reflection that we have suggested no breach of faith, but have promulgated a plan which the most conscientious servant of the state might be proud to work out.

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ART. VI.-Topographical Survey of the River Hooghly from Bandel to Garden Reach, exhibiting the Principal Buildings, Ghats, and Temples on both banks, executed in the year 1841; by Charles Joseph.

AFTER the important questions, to which we have solicited the attention of the reader in the preceding pages of this number, we shall be readily excused for closing it with an article which will involve little, if any, mental exertion. We solicit him to accompany us with Joseph's Map, up both banks of the Hooghly, while we point out the various spots which possess an interest from old associations or have been rendered memorable by historical recollections. To these places we cannot possess a better topographical guide than the Map placed at the head of this article, which is remarkable both for the minute accuracy of its details, and for its splendid execution. We are sorry to learn that it has not been sufficiently appreciated by the public, to afford the enterprizing compiler any thing like an adequate remuneration for his labor, but in a few years it will unquestionably be considered one of the most interesting publications of the present day, and sought after with a degree of avidity proportioned to its value and its scarcity. The notices we now offer on the different places of note on the Hooghly, which are marked down on the map, or which through the mutation of circumstances have been omitted in it, are drawn partly from the recollections of aged residents, and partly from the observations to be found in authors now known to few but the historian and the archaeologist. From these sources we have endeavored to collect together whatever appeared likely to illustrate the banks of the river, and to revive the remembrance of the scenes and events which have distinguished them. We lay claim to no merit but that of having catered industriously for the amusement of the reader. The reading we now present him is of the lightest order, and by some may even be deemed frivolous. We have no other object in this article but the rational gratification of the hour. We have allotted to it no regular course, or fixed destination, but have reserved to ourselves the privilege of pausing, or digressing wherever we could discover any thing calculated to afford pleasure.

The Map commences in the South with that series of splendid mansions at Garden Reach, which surprise and delight the eye of the stranger as he approaches Calcutta, and which form so appropriate an introduction to a city which has justly been denominated the City of Palaces. At what precise period after