General's office, Fort William, 18th Sep tember, 1786, (Signed) J. CHEAP, D. Ac. Gen. Reed per Ranger pacquet, in England, April, 1787.. I could not pafs over this period, from which I have derived much inftruction, without directing the public attention to it, particularly as Sir John Macpherson has for fome time been abfent among the Durbars of the continent of Europe, and Mr. Grant has been judicioufly fettling the Doul Bundobuft with his tenants in the North of Scotland, where the Board of Control might fend for the original native accounts of British India, under the Moghul feal of office, and for the valuable hiftorical li brary, in Perfian, which with fo much modefty Mr. Grant refers to in the extract I have made from his political furvey of the Northern Circars, which information, I believe, could not be obtained in any public or other private collection in Europe. CHAP. VII. On the Certificates concerning the Definition of Zemindars. MUCH ftrefs has been laid on the definition of the word Zemindar; in Europe it may appear excefs of delicacy and purity of British adminiftration; in India it can only appear evidence of our extreme ignorance. If we are ignorant, we ought to be cautious from what fource we gain information; and the neceffity of connecting the definition of office with the Sunnud, will appear even from confidering the Company's tenure of their Jageer in the Carnatic, and their Zemindaries in Bengal. Mr. Dalrymple informs us*, that he uses the term Jaghire geographically only, for if it was properly faghire, there would be fervice due; whereas, the lands being free * Short account of the Gentoo mode of collecting revenue, p. 5. Elmfley, 1783. of all fervice, he claffes the poffeffion as Inaum. Mr. Grant informs us, that Zemindary tenure in Bengal implies official fervice, and that if it was an heritable grant, it would be Al-tumgha, only in ufe fince 1765 *; confequently a definition of thefe two important terms in the revenue divifion of India, mifapplied as a general definition of Jageers and Zemindaries of the Moghul government, must involve us in infinite confufion; and this has actually happened, by referring to the interefted native officers for proper definition of thefe terms. The impropriety and fallacy of the evidence of the officers who anfwered the questions proposed by the Governor and Council in 1773, is fully ftated by Mr. Grant +; it will therefore be only neceffary fummarily to refer to a sentence in his analysis of the revenue of Bengal. "We must admire the candor and fimplicity of the Pundits or *Inquiry into the Nature of Zemindary Tenures, p. 1. Debrett, 1790. + Inquiry into Zemindary Tenures, p. 37. learned Brahmin Hindoos, when applied to, in 1773, to expound the doctrine of fucceffion to Zemindaries in Bengal; whether by civil, or hereditary right, it devolved to the lineal defcendant of the laft occupant, or in virtue of Sunnud of the Prince ? They declare, it is not written in the Shafter," or divine books fuppofed to be promulgated 4,000 years before the political inftitutes of the Moghul Emperors in Hindoftan; and we must contrast, not without indignation, the reference of the Naib Soubah to the fcriptural code of the Legislator of Arabia, published in the 7th century, as the rule of fucceffion to Hindoo Zemindaries, a fpecies of official property, undefcribed in the Koran, and first introduced with the Moghul conqueft of Hindoftan, almost 1000 years after; besides which perverfion of chronology, it was a criminal perverfion of one of the best-underftood fundamental and facred principles of Mahomedan faith, for a Muffulman to acknowledge a right of territorial inheritance, independant of virtual fupreme authority, to be vested in any conquered infidel fubject." Mr. Roufe, however, refts very much on this evidence, though he admits "that if there fhould be contradiction on fimilar queries, propofed even to other perfons occupying their ftations, it would certainly weaken the first evidence; but if from the very perfons themfelves, would not only difparage the first, but render the teftimony of fuch perfons altogether inadraiffible *." My private opinion was fatisfied with Mr. Grant's objection to the channel of inquiry; but having heard that fimilar inquiry had been inftituted, 1787, in the revenue department at Calcutta, by questions to perfons more or lefs under the disqualification imputable to the refpondents of 1773, and that fimilar queftions (I believe with an additional one) had been fubmitted by Colonel J. Murray, for his own information, to some of the most refpeñable natives of Hindoftan, whofe fituation and character placed them above fufpicion of intentional misinformation, I was fo lucky to obtain a copy of their answer in 1790, • Roufe's Differtation, p. 133. Stockdale, 1791 |