This ten years fettlement, and new definition of perfons, deliberately refolved on, were published, Zemindars were invited to fubfcribe to it, but fcarce had they reached the more diftant ftations than they were followed by orders cancelling parts of the agreement; for Government found, by the experience of three months, ftrong objections which ought to have been foreseen by a cursory view of the proceedings of the revenue departments referred to in the above order, and particularly by the correfpondence of Sir John Shore and Mr. Law *. The first operation of the article + affecting Abfentees appeared in the accounts Havillee Bahar, in those districts of Bahar in which the Mocurrerry fettlement had then taken place: the newly defined proprietors were difpoffeffed folely on account of their abfence; of 70 villages, confifting of 22,452 Begas, affeffed at 18,535 rupees; and 40 villages of 10,760 Begas, affeffed at 10,569 rupees, were refused by the proprietors on the conditions offered by

* Sketch of late Arrangements. Stockdale, 1792. + Ibid. p. 117.

the Collector; and 4 villages, confifting of 2,679 Begas, affeffed at 773 rupees, were taken from proprietors without any caufe affigned; and in other parts of the return the detail was by no means fufficiently explained. Sir John Shore could not withstand public opinion, fupported by fuch official evidence, and he confeffed that the Mocurrerry plan, profeffing to establish hereditary eftates with fixed rents in practice, established an Ideal permanency; that the rules which he had deemed adequate to fecure Zemindars in their rights, and the Reyuts from oppreffion, though numerous, had proved indefinite and arbitrary; that the undefined relation of Zemindars with Talookdars and Reyuts, which he conceived would have been fettled by defining the relation of Zemindar to the fovereign, and by leaving the Zemindar to fettle with the dependants on his landed property, had brought forward cafes which the Revenue Board were unable to understand or define;

* Sketch of late Arrangements; Mr. Law's Letter to John Shore, Efq. Prefident, and Members of the Board of Revenue, p. 48.

and in common cafes the want of data precluded decifion on principles of justice and policy; and that uncertain decifion led invariably either to diminution of revenue, or to confirmation of oppreffive exaction; that he was therefore convinced, if the Zemindars were left to make their arrangements with the Reyuts, which was the fundamental principle of the Mocurrerry plan, the confufion could never be adjusted. In this dilemma, Sir John Shore recommended that the ten years fettlement, promulgated to the country as permanent, fhould be confidered by Government as a period of experiment; if it should be found impracticable to collect the tribute under the acknowledged inequality of affeffment, a due diftribution of it might prevent the diminution of revenue; that the new principle would be better introduced by degrees than established beyond the power of revocation, but that during the ten years the assessment at all events fhould be unalterable; that he was not forry Mr. Law's plan had been executed, as the experiment would lead to farther experience, which may assist in determining the general quef

tion; but he was convinced that many confequences of the plan appeared in a dif ferent light in practice than they appeared to him when under difcuffion; and on the whole, that the fundamental principle of the plan, if confirmed, must be corrected by annulling the parts which have a direct tendancy to fubvert it, and Government. muft fubmit to refcind what it has approved *. I trace Sir John Shore's exploded opinions, fupported in England by documents, for which Mr. Roufe acknowledges his obligation to Sir John Shore in his anfwer to Mr. Grant's Inquiry into Zemindary Tenures. It is no part of my investigation to afcertain in what degree Lord Cornwallis was embarraffed when Sir John Shore left him to amend his acknowledged errors; I make no doubt, all the circumftances were confidered; otherwife he would not have been recommended to the honourable marks of Royal favour, and fent back to India as fucceffor to the

*Substance of Sir John Shore's Minute, 8th Dec. 1789.

+ Mr. Roufe's Differtation, 1790.

Marquis Cornwallis; but while the public opinion in England was reconciled to the definition of the Zemindar actual proprietor and liege lord, by the learned differtation of the Secretary of the Board of Control, the opinion of that measure in India may be collected from the Dedication of Agricola's Letters to Thomas Graham, Esq. Prefident of the Board of Revenue *, in the following extract:

"When I first committed my fentiments to the public on the finance of this country, I little expected the important decifion regarding the Zemindars' proprietary rights in the foil would be fo foon paffed, or I should have forborne treating of the fubject, or endeavoured to do it on a plan confonant to fuch decifion. I fhall avoid giving my opinion at prefent on the propriety or neceffity of fuch an acknowledgement on our part, nor is it any longer neceffary to investigate their claims to it,

* General Obfervations of the Mode of Affeffing and levying the Land Tax, by Agricola. Calcutta, 1791.