CHAP. IV.

The Second Period, corrected by Act of Parliament.

IN this state was the fyftem of revenue management when the Legislature of Great Britain prefcribed an amendment; a Supreme Civil Government, a Supreme Court of Judicature, a limitation of the Company's dividend, an affumption of three fourths of the furplus of the net revenues in behalf of the nation, and the feparation of the revenue from the commercial department, were the principal features of Lord North's plan for the better administration of British India, to preserve it for Great Britain, after he had ably afferted the rights of the State against the claims of the Company to the territory. At the expiration of the five years fettlement of the Committee of Circuit, Mr. Haftings, profiting by experience, wifhed to revert to the conftitutional system of Moghul fettlement on the best information he could obtain: his real diffi

66

culty, his mistruft of Ameens and conviction of abuses, and of an existing regular fyftem in the country, by this production a Kurcha* of a Reyut should be taken collectively with the acknowledgement which clofes Mr. Haftings' minute of the 12th November, 1776, "I am not prepared to propofe a complete plan, and decline giving a premature and partial opinion while I am profeffedly feeking for the grounds which are to determine it†," they fully evince the mind of the Governor General, and the motive of his experiment. To Mr. Francis it appeared, on the contrary, that there was no neceffity for the interpofition of Government between the Zemindar and Reyut; " if they are left to themselves they will foon come to an agreement, in which each party will find his advantage‡;" "we have no fafer rule to direct us, than the actual receipts of the three laft years, because they fhew beft the actual ftate of lands;" "that Government must make an eftimate for a

*Account current.

+ Mr. Francis' Original Minutes, p. 155.

Ibid. page 55.

tary,

permanent establishment, civil and miliand investment, with a reafonable allowance of furplus to anfwer the poffible excess of disbursements beyond the estimate; that the revenue of 1776 of itself would leave a fufficient furplus to provide for unforeseen emergency, and fo far from withing to increafe it, he conceived it would be neceffary to remit part of it in the future collections, left the accumulating furplus fhould abforb all the circulating fpecie of the country."

It is not neceffary to enter farther into the controverfy, than to ftate that whatever degree of rivalfhip or perfonal animosity unfortunately existed between Mr. Haftings and Mr. Francis, the point of political difference in 1766 appears limited to the revenue fyftem. Mr. Francis agreed that the appointment of the Naib Subah was a proper beginning, which the propofed farther investigation of the Fougedary and Zemindary jurifdiction might render applicable to the country and to the reduced ftate of the Zemindars; but to Mr. Haftings' plan of fettlement Mr. Francis op

pofed with an acknowledged want of information, entire dependance on the fingle principle of permanency to render unequal affeffment, and an abfolute dependance of the Reyut on the Zemindar, unproductive of inconvenience. The original minutes and the plan of settlement of Mr. Francis, I may again revert to; but at this period it is fufficient to obferve, that Mr. Haftings' Aumeen plan was adopted, and the refult of that fettlement certainly produced only a larger remiffion of the diminished fumma of M. H. Khan, a farther increase of charges, farther diminution of income, and balances as large as ever. Mr. Grant has investigated in detail the accounts of this period; and he makes it evident that the whole of these confequences were imputable to the want of a fyftem founded on fixed principles of finance applicable to the state of the country, and not merely to cafual increase of charges; for the income of the Soubah, collected from Zemindars and farmers, or the Malgoozary, is demonstrated to have been lefs, even where the country was improved, and where the Reyuts

actually paid, in the name and behalf of Government, more than they paid on the highest standard of former years; still the balances increased, and appeared to grow, in the inverse proportion to irregular, injudicious full remiffion of the ftipulated dues of the Exchequer.

In tracing the revenue arrangements, which engaged the controverfial talents of Mr. Haftings and Mr. Francis, I mentioned that the Fougedary fyftem, by the appointment of a Naib Soubah, or Deputy Soubah, was not objected to by Mr. Francis: this department, including all the criminal juftice of the country, was not wantonly taken up for the purpose of reform by Mr. Haftings, any more than the Revenue Department; Parliament had appointed a Supreme Court of Judicature by the act 1773*, on the fuppofition that a Mayor's Court would not be adequate to the administration of the provinces. It is not neceffary to state the conéquences of British law, and of the King's writs having

* Vide A& 13 Geo. III. cap. 63. fec. 14.