three rupees per annum is contrary to the ftanding law of the empire, which, until Aliverdi's time, had been held facred and inviolable.

"In the year 1732, your Governor and Council had in agitation the raifing the rents of your own Zemindary of Calcutta, which, being rumored abroad, they received a peremptory Perwannah from the Soubah forbidding them, in which the Soubah told them that they were presuming to do a thing which he himself had not power to do, and that if they perfifted they would, by the laws of the empire, forfeit their lands.

"Frauds throughout the empire in letting the lands are manifold: for inftance, the Rajah and Zemindars, by private compact with the Soubab's officers, who are charged with the management of this department, obtain more lands than by their Sunnuds (or grants which are commonly called Pottahs) appear, and confequently pay no rent to the King for the furplus land. The fame artifice is practifed between the

Dewans of the Rajahs and Zemindars, and the Izardars or farmers, and the tenants (Reyut) or common Pottah-holders under them, by bribing the officers of the Jummabundy and thofe entrusted with the meafurements of the lands, that they may enjoy the benefit of the furplus land and I may juftly aver, there is not a tenant in Hindoftan but poffeffes and occupies a greater quantity of land than his Pottah expreffes, confequently it is the tenant (Reyut) that ultimately enjoys the benefit of the furplus land, thus gained by corruption from the Soubah's minifters, while the King fpecifically fuffers in his rents. It extremely well answers the tenants (Reyuts) purpose to poffefs, if he can, by a small. bribe, more land than he pays for, because himself and his heirs enjoy the profit of it for perpetuity; fince, by a fundamental law of the empire, their Pottabs are irrevocable as long as they pay the rent rated in them refpectively; and fo tender and indulgent are the laws of Hindostan in this particular, that no tenant forfeits his land before he has failed in his payments twelve

months, though the land tax by the fame laws is to be paid every three months.

"This method of fecreting or purloining the land from the King and the Soubab has been practifed time out of mind; and it is quite in point to mention a flagrant instance that appeared in the year 1753, when, in confequence of the general fcrutiny made by your order in your Zemindary of Calcutta, it was demonftrated that in your fmall diftrict, upon a favourable new meafurement of your land, there were near 500 Begahs fecreted in this way and fraudulently enjoyed by your tenants, for which you had received no ground rent from your being invested with the Zemindary, of this you may be convinced by turning to your Jummabundy, or register of your lands, fubfequently by me tranfmitted to you. As you, gentlemen, have by that measurement gained 500 Begahs of ground upon a poffeffion of 6,200, you may judge from thence what an aftonishing additional revenue would arise to you, when Soubab of the provinces, from a new though favou rable measurement of the whole lauds.

When the revenues arifing from the lands of this country are retained in the proprietor's hands, that is, not farmed out, one univerfal chain of roguery rans through the whole, as well as in the rents of the lands, and there is a fellow-feeling between every one employed in the collections, from the Dewan to the loweft Moree or writer, and this the Rajahs and Zemindars, the great proprietors of the land, are no more exempt from than the Company is, notwithstanding the utmoft integrity of their covenanted fervants: but I have fo clearly traced and laid open the nature of those frauds, which are fimilar throughout the empire, in my state of the Company's revenues Zemindary, dated December 15, 1752, that I need not trouble you further on the fubject than to refer you thereto."

In another part Governor Holwell * mentions an anecdote which recalls the attention of Great Britain to the rights of the natives of the Bengal provinces; that when the Hindoo Rajahs, or Princes of

Interesting Hift. Events, Vol. I. p. 37.

Hindoftan fubmitted to Tamerlane, it was exprefsly flipulated that the Emperors should never impofe the fefferah, or poll tax, upon the Hindoos.

But to bring forward an authoritative native voucher of the peculiar rights and cuftoms of Bengal and Babar, I fhall, in this place, infert extracts from the Ayeen Akberry-In the Soubah of Bengal" the fubjects are very obedient to Government,

and pay their annual rents in eight months by installments, themselves bringing Mohurs and Rupees to the places appointed for the receipt of the revenues, it not being customary in this Soubah for the Hufbandmen and Government to divide the crops. Grain is always cheap, and the produce of the lands is determined by Nuuk : His Majefty has had the goodnefs to confirm those customs."-the term Nuuk is explained in the article relating to the duties of the Collector of Revenues, and connects the custom of Bengal and Bahar under the defcription Kunkoot, "Kun in the Hin

* Ayeen Akberry, Vol. II. p. 9.