plans on the investigation required by the act, before he fuperfeded Mr. Grant's opinions, to which the new code of 1787 were not applied. The first question at iffue was no lefs important than whether Zemindars were the legal real proprietors of the foil as landlords, or whether they were officers of the Moghul, collectors of the revenues in behalf of the fovereign proprietor of the foil? but it appears that the Board meant to juftify, by the answers to certain queries, a prejudged opinion of the queftion itself.

The inftruction of the Board to Mr. Grant, March, 1787, was, "to prepare and lay before the Board a feries of queries for the purpofe of afcertaining, as correctly as the nature of the fubject will admit, what are the real jurifdictions, rights, and privileges of Zemindars, Talookdars, and fageerdars, under the conftitution and cuftoms of the Mahomedan or Hindoo government, and what were the tributes, rents, and fervices, which they were bound to render and perform to the Sovereign power; and in like manner thofe

from the Talookdars to their immediate Liege Lord the Zemindar; and by what rule or ftandard they were, or ought, feverally to be regulated." The obfervation of Mr. Grant on the mode the Board called on him to propound questions relative to the public revenue to interefted individuals, and not to answer the queries officially connected with his department, appears in an appendix to the treatife he published in London*. The questions which, as Serifhtadar, he had anfwered, are the fame to which the anfwers of different natives are detailed in the preceding pages. I refer to Mr. Grant's anfwer as of the first authority; and it will at all times be found. policy, by minute investigation of intelligent covenanted fervants, to fuperfede the neceffity of a public parade of ignorance; for, exclufive of the inconvenience which now exifts from the erroneous decifion of this question in 1789, it may occafion ferious political inconvenience, by encouraging every dependant on the British

*Inquiry into Zemindary Tenures, Append. No. 3. p. 56. Debrett, 1790.

power, to inftitute claims, on our ignorance, incompatible with the rights and exiftence of the power of Great Britain in British India. The public, in the abovementioned treatife of Mr. Grant, the late Serifhtadar, may examine the arguments which Sir John Shore rejected; and by perufing the treatife publifhed by Mr. Law+, late a Member of the Council of Revenue in Fort William, may examine the arguments on which Sir John Shore adopted, in 1788, the Mocurrerry plan, ordered by Lord Cornwallis in 1789. It is fufficient for me to refer to thefe documents to juftify my opinion of the investigation of 1788 and 1789, and it will not be disputed that the revenue and criminal regulations. were publifhed in Bengal in 1787, and that the definition of the perfons to whom they applied was not decided in 1788, nor publicly determined before the date of the following order.

* Inquiry into Zemindary Tenures. Debrett, 1790. + Sketch of the late arrangements in Bengal. Stockdale, 1792.

To John Shore, Efq. Prefident, and Member of the Board of Revenue.

Reve Dept

GENTLEMEN,

FORT WILLIAM, May 20th, 1789.

WITH a view to carry into execution the orders of the Court of Directors for a fettlement of the Bahar province, we have thought it expedient to take the fubject into our confideration at this early period, that at the expiration of the Fufillee year, in September next, the measure may be wholly accomplished, or, as far as practicable carried into execution.

Our inftructions to the Collectors of Ba

har, regarding the fettlement of last year, were preparatory to the measure, and had a reference to it; we have accordingly paffed the following refolution, with a view to the final attainment of the intended object.

ift, That at the expiration of the prefent Fufillee year a new fettlement of Bahar be concluded with the Zemindars, the actual proprietors of the foil, whether at present independent or dependent upon any other Zemindars paying their rents immediately to Government.

2nd, That the fettlement be made for a period of ten years certain, with a notification that, if approved by the Court of Directors, it will become permanent and no farther alteration take place at the end of ten years.

3rd, That the fumma which each Zemindar is to pay, be fixed by the Collector, with the referve of the approbation of the Board of Revenue, on fair and equitable principles, according to the beft accounts which he can procure of the value of the lands, without a measurement of them; that if he fhould deem it eligible, he may call upon the Zemindars to deliver in proposals for renting their lands, but that his judgement is to determine the amount.