named in the document should be ascertained, and capable of being proved at any time; and that the fact that both parties fully understand all the conditions of the deed should be ascertained, and recorded by a disinterested officer. The great length of some forms of bond adopted, and the generally illiterate character of the poorer of the 2 parties, make this last provision in my opinion very desirable. From such a system of registration both parties will derive great advantage and much unsatisfactory litigation will be prevented.

92. The separate Minute, signed by Mr. Temple and Mr. Fergusson, treats of some points not noticed in the Report. These district Magistrates have and prosecute British subexercise that power. This

Minor points in Minute of Messrs. Temple and Fergusson.

2 gentlemen remark that
ample power to investigate

jects in the mufassal, and that they ought to

Prosecution of British subjects.

is true, though the trial (except in cases of simple assault punishable by a fine of Rs. 500) under the present law can only be at the Presidency. In grave cases, I trust that this duty is never neglected. But the expense both to the public and to private persons of a prosecution at the Presidency, for an offence committed at a distance, is very heavy; and the inconvenience and loss to prosecutors and witnesses are so great, that such prosecutions are a misfortune to the neighbourhood, in which the person injured is the most certain sufferer. It is not in the nature of things that these considerations should not operate to a certain extent, as an exemption from amenability to all criminal law, in minor matters. These 2 same members recommend the general disarming of all natives in Bengal, but without taking away clubs. The long, heavy, iron-bound club in use is a formidable lethal weapon; and a disarming in Bengal, which should not touch the most common lethal weapon used in affrays, would be operative, I fear, only for harm. It would disarm the peaceable man, and allow the professional bravo of the country to carry his own peculiar arms. I would rather reverse the operation. I do not see in the evidence anything to show that the mass of the people in Bengal, a quiet and well behaved race, should be disarmed. I should like to see them much more ready and more stout in self-defence than they are. But I would disarm and punish the hired clubmen, and I would punish all who enploy them, without exception of classes. I trust that a provision in the Penal Code in

Responsibility of prime movers in affrays.

troduced by the Bengal Member of the Legislative Council, in consequence of a suggestion from me, will have the effect of enabling the Magistrate to cut off the root of affrays, by imposing some responsibility on those in whose interest they are committed, as recommended by those 2 Members of the Commission.

93.

Fergusson's

Mr. Minute.

The body of the Report is signed by 4 Members. The fifth, Mr. Fergusson, the able representative of the planting interest in the Commission, has not signed it, and has put in a separate Minute, explaining his reasons. I understand that his dissent, in the main, is to the tone of the Report, which in his opinion leads to the inference that planters, as a body, are lawless. The inference I myself draw from the Report is, that the planters as a body, and naturally, are like any other class of our fellow-countrymen; but that, being within the meshes of a false system, in all that concerns that system, they cannot but act as the system constrains them. Like all such bodies they comprise men of all temperaments; but it is and has ever been my conviction that there are in this body many as good men as any in India; and I see nothing in the Report to the contrary. Mr. Fergusson objects to certain views in the Report, as tending to disturb the acknowledged principles of the Permanent Settlement, and to give raiyats notions of their rights incompatible with that contract between Government and the zamindar. I conceive that there is here some of that misapprehension of the nature of the Permanent Settlement which is very common. That measure in no respect differs from any other Indian revenue settlement, except in being permanent, instead of for a term of years. It is only a settlement of the Government demand of revenue. It in no way touches any rights, interests, or tenures of land, all which it leaves as it found them. It is truly described as a contract between Government and the zamindar; and therefore necessarily it could not affect third parties, whose rights, titles, and interests, indeed, it acknowledges especially, and excepts in terms. Mr. Fergusson freely admits that the recent crisis must sooner or later have occurred, because planters did not raise their prices as other prices rose. He comes thus, I think, in effect, to the same practical conclusion that the majority of the Commission and I myself come to, namely, that the root of the whole question is the struggle to make raiyats grow indigo plant, without paying them the price of it.

Conclusion.

94. My high opinion of the manner in which the Commission have conducted their inquiries, and reported to Government their conclusions, upon this extensive and long controverted subject, has been expressed to the gentlemen who composed it, in a separate letter. At a moment of passionate excitement, the careful impartiality with which they conducted their inquiries * was admitted on all sides. And though every one will form his own judgment as to their conclusions and recommendations, the cautious, temperate and kindly manner in which they have framed their Report, will, I am sure, be cordially knowledged by every one."

Previous appointments.

CHAPTER III.

SIR CECIL BEADON, K. C. S. I.

1862-67.

LIKE his two predecessors Sir Cecil Beadon stood out prominently before all others as the officer designate omnium consensu for the Lieutenant-Governorship whenever a vacancy should occur in that office. He had held all the qualifying appointments, his record was unblemished, he was in the prime of life. He was born in 1816, the youngest son of Richard Beadon Esqre., and grandson of the Right Reverend Richard Beadon, d. d., Bishop of Bath and Wells. His mother was a sister of the first Lord Heytesbury. He was educated at Eton and at Haileybury, and at the age of 18 was presented with an appointment to the Bengal Civil Service, which had been placed by the Court of Directors at the disposal of Lord Heytesbury, upon his nomination to the post of Governor-General of India,—a nomination which was shortly afterwards cancelled on the return of the Whig Government to office. He arrived in India on the 31st December 1836, and held the following appointments in the earlier years of his service: July 1837, Assistant, Patna Division: from August 1837 at Saran: September 1838. Superintendent of khas mahals: March 1839, Joint-Magistrate and Deputy Collector of Champaran : from August to October 1839, Joint-Magistrate and Deputy Collector of Saran, Bihar, Patna, and Bhagalpur successively: January 1842, Magistrate and Collector of Bhagalpur: when Magistrate of Murshidabad in 1843 he was appointed Under-Secretary to the Government of Bengal. He was Secretary to the Board of Revenue in 1847, and was selected in 1850 by Lord Dalhousie to represent Bengal on a Commission of inquiry into the Indian Postal System. This inquiry resulted in the establishment of a uniform postage in India analogous to the English penny postage. He was also Secretary to the Government of Bengal, 1852; Secretary to the Government of India in the Home Department, 1854; Foreign Secretary, 1859; Member of the Council of the Governor-General, 1860; and became LieutenantGovernor of Bengal in 1862. There is a short account of Sir C.