in council in June, 1790; they refumed Gunges, Bazars, and Hauts, which had been included in all former fettlements, and compenfation was ordered, amounting to one tenth of the not receipts, to the Zemindars and holders of Maloozary lands, who had been permitted to collect thofe duties as part of their fettlement; and officers were appointed by Government to collect the duties in the Gunges, Bazars, and Hauts, in the Malgoszary and rent-free lands+. The Sair duties, including Aboabs, were abolished, with the exception in behalf of Government of Calcutta and government customs; the dutics levied on pilgrims, at Gya and other places of pilgrimage; the Akberry, or tax on fpirituous liquors; and the collections made in the Gunges, Bazars, and Hauts, fituated in the limits of Calcutta, and with the exception in behalf of the actual proprietors, according to the publifhed refolutions of 11th June, 1790, of Abcabs, denominated in the Sair account Phulker, Bunker, and ful Sketch of late Arrangements, p. 245. + Ibid, p. 257• ker; tax on houses, shops, orchards, pafture ground, and fisheries, denominated by the faid order as of the nature of rents and proper objects of unauthorised taxation * ; but it appears that the extent of these refumptions was not understood; fome were affumed and relinquished half a dozen times in the first year, to render them compatible with the rule of Government's limited infraction of its folemn declaration in the preceding year+; thefe difficulties not only delayed the fettlement many months, but caufed a general diffidence in the country, and convinced the Zemindars that the proposed Bundebuft could not be permanent. Government was equally embarraffed, for having deviated from the principle of the fettlement of 1789, it became neceffary to change the regulations of 1787, to render them applicable to the purposes, of revenue and criminal judicature in the Bengal provinces; the amended code was published' in November, 1791, and farther amendments were ftill wanting, which will * Sketch of late Arrangements, p. 258. + Agricola, Letter 22, p. 137. oblige me to explain the progress of British judicature in Bengal. CHAP. IX. The Progrefs of Courts of Judicature in British India. IT will be remembered a Mayor's Court at Calcutta, fuch as it now exifts at Madrafs and Bombay, by royal charter, had been found adequate to the purposes of juftice and police previous to 1757, the period at which the Company was obliged to apply to the King for powers to resent injustice, and to recover from the ufurpers of the Mogul's power the privileges which had been granted to the Company by the Mogul. The King of Great Britain granted to the Company in 1757 his right to the plunder and booty of warfare; and the fucceffes of the Company not only repaid their loffes, but rendered them the most F f powerful among the ufurpers; and the Mogul finding it impoffible to reinstate himfelf in the Bengal provinces without the aid of the English, threw himself under their protection; they pleaded their faith to ufurpers whom they had fupported, and the Mogul was under the neceffity of figning the partition of his empire in the manner which Lord Clive dictated, judiciously and politically stated according to the circumstances of the English at that period, with a view of establishing the empire of British India; but foolishly and unjuftly, if Delhi and Allahabad is permitted to become an hoftile instead of a friendly barrier; and if Oude, inftead of a powerful dependant, becomes an oppreffed or an independant power. The northern defence being fecured by Lord Clive's partition, and the north-weft barrier of Bengal being in the hands of independant Rajahs, who had preferred their faftneffes with limited. diftricts to fubmiffion to Mahomedan or Mahratta government, required no change; the Circars were at that time important, from being the quarter in which the French could practife the leffon which the English had fo aptly learnt. They were not refponfible to the prejudices and conftitu tional jealousy of a free government, but they were bent on attaining power in India, and it fuited the British policy to grovel with the Company's agency, under native grants or as allies, to rout the French in the Circars as allies to the Nizam, rather than to refift and defeat the policy of France, by a general war. The grant of the Circars by the Mogul was made a paramount legal title to its fovereignty, and was established alfo by the British army; but the Mogul's grant of the Bengal provinces was framed to be compatible with the Company's European and Indian intereft, and apparently with their engagements to the Nabob whom they had made. The Company became Dewans, or receivers of the Sovereign's revenues, not accountable to the Mogul, to cover by that nominal office whatever revenue they could not state as plunder and booty in their account with the King of Great Britain, and having got the purfe, they were not inclined to let others participate of the fiction; they fettled a penfion on their Nabob, and ap |