Suddu-cy, or allowance of 2 per cent.s they are thus defined: "The Putwarry is employed on the part of the husbandman to keep an account of his receipts and difbursements, and no village is without one of these. The Canongoe is the protector of the husbandman, and there is one in every purgunnah*." If the Canongoes had little to do in 1772, we shall find, by the Bengal revenue confultations in 1789, that the Mocurrery plan did not include thofe officers +. "The Canongoes will have nothing to do when the village allotment takes place." "When the Mocurreys fhall be confirmed the Canongoe office becomes useless; the old officers may receive their falaries for life, for as the rent of each village with its meafurement are herein particularifed, the old records are not neceffary ‡." Tehfeeldars might employ the ufelefs Canongoes in the * Ayeen Akberry, Vol. I. p. 358. 66 + Mr. Law has withheld his Appendix E relating to the Canongoe office, p. 223. Sketch of late Arrange ments. Ibid. page 170. receipts*" In Babar the Canongoe's Sepoordaneh, on the report of the Tehfeeldar, was ordered to be abolished as an impofition. The confequent alteration of the Reyut's fituation is ftriking in every point of view; inftead of his heritable Pottah registered by the Canongoe and guaranteed by the Sovereign, he is turned over to the Zemindar, his liege lord and proprietor of the foil. A village by the Mocurrery plan is defined to be "an average affeffment of an extent of foil, which the proprietor must allot in the best mode for himself ‡;" and it being generally allowed that the affeffment was unequal, and the measurement inaccurate §; Mr. Shore obferves, "that irregularities in the affeffment are acknowledged to be of lefs importance to the ftate than the variable uncertainty of its amount is to the subject; it is, however, a defirable object in fixing the quit rent in perpetuity to render it in the first instance as equal as poffible; whether, under all cir * Sketch of late Arrangements, p. 170. cumstances, it would be adviseable to delay the plan with a view to this object is another, and serious, confideration." The Prefident of the Board of Revenue ftated that "Mr. Law obferves, the Canongoe's measurement cannot be relied upon; he has inferted in the Pottah and Cabooleat the term more or less. In reverting to the copies of these instruments, accompanying the Collector's letter of the 24th of October, I could not find the term more or less." These observations lead to the explanation of the Collector's arbitrary rule of correcting the defects+: he had only to diminifh upon the highly cultivated, and confequently heavily affeffed villages, and in fome inftances to increase a little the Jum ma of a few villages with an extenfive tract of land which paid almost nothing." By freeing the Mocurrydars from the capricious claims of head Zemindars," it were nearly impoffible to over affefs any villages." In refpect to boundaries, "ful * Sketch of late Arrangements, p. 106. + Ibid. p. 106. ly aware of the confequences from litigated limits, I (Mr. Law) inferted the claufe in the Pottah, or title deed, for the reciprocal fecurity of Government and landholder." "On reference to the Perfian grant the word Tuckmenum is inferted, but, by fome miftake, the copier of the English Pottah transmitted to the Board has omitted its tranflate estimated more or lefs+." "Sooner or later the village holders will even mark their boundaries, which are fufficiently afcertained now, but they could not be relied upon for a report; firft from their reluctance to incur trouble and expence; fecondly from fear of expofing themselves to higher rent, or from a wifh to obtain a lower; thirdly to their liability to err, from ignorance or neglect. No report can exclude the revifion of Adaulets when dif putes arife; to attempt defining every limit would be to excite a spirit of dispute and encroachment instead of preventing it. The Collector's affiftant would be apt to miftake, and his menfuration could not be in Sketch of late Arrangements, p. 109. ↑ Ibid. p. 107. juftice a bar to the Court's investigation upon an appeal, and therefore his trouble ab initio be nugatory*." This important word "Tuckmenum" will leave every grant, or Pottab where boundaries are ascertained, open to the decifion of the Adaulet; and where boundaries are not ascertained and increased, cultivation fhall make it worth difpute:"the courts of juftice will decide, in what manner is immaterial to the Government, whofe quit rent cannot be endangered +." Having thus fettled the affeffment, if the land proprietor refufe the'quit rent allotment, he will receive permanent compensation of one tenth; if he accepts, he must make good his payments, or the lands must be fold privately § by the Zemindar, or publicly by the Collector, fubject to the specified tax || "A purchaser's refusal of the quit rent cannot be admitted, else the applica Sketch of late Arrangements, p. III. + Ibid. P. IIO. Ibid. p. 42. § Ibid. 121. Ibid. p. 85. |