plan by Sir John Shore; the Zemindars have no power to affefs the diftricts. All the charges incident on land are thrown on the land, and "should any earthquake happen, overflowing rivers depofit fand, or mistaken affeffment render the village inadequate to bear the land tax, the proprietor fhould be at liberty to refign the eftate, (the quit rent being the condition of his tenure) and the Board of Revenue may afterwards grant it to another." And where new aqueducts and mounds are to be made, the Supreme Board, as Parliaments in England, confulting general utility, will grant particular licences +. I need not comment on the juftice and policy of this opinion: I fhall proceed to ftate circumftances which prove the extent and the neceffity of a liberal expenditure, and stimulate the fuperintendance of the Commiffioners under the prefent act to this fubject, which preffes on the humanity, and is in fact intimately connected with the intereft, of Great Britain.

* Sketch of late Arrangements, p. 95.

+ Ibid. p. 119.

Lord Cornwallis, having traverfed the Carnatic and the Myfore with a victorious army, will judge whether the regulations of Tippoo produced greater profperity where they extended, than the Company's fyftem of affignments has produced in the Carnatic: Lord Cornwallis's honourable adherence to the Corga Rajah, on the final partition fettlement, and his decided fupport of the Rajah of Travancore, put him above the reach of detraction, and render him the faviour of the Hindoos in the peninfula of India; during his administration he has had opportunity to know that storms and droughts require the vigilance of a protecting government, both in Bengal and in the Carnatic, to preferve the people, who, by the right of the fword, are properly called our fubjects in British India.

I was favoured by Dr. Anderson with his laft publication*, and the following paffage in his letter to Colonel Kyd is an existing evidence of the neceffity of a protecting Government.

* Additional Letters, Madras, 1793.

Dear Sir,

I am favoured with your letter of 26th May, acknowledging the receipt of the publications I sent you, from which you have extracted what regards the fall of rain, in fuch a way, as to draw a conclufion that agrees with experience; for between the latitude of 16 and 18 degrees on the Coast there was fo little rain fell during the years 1764, 1765, and 1766, that the country was defolated by famine.

The fame thing has now happened again in the fame part of the country, infomuch that, I am credibly informed, one half of the inhabitants are no more! and the remainder fo feeble and weak, that, on the report of rice coming from the Malabar Coaft, by order of the Governor General, 5,000 poor people left Raiamundry, and very few reached the fea fide, although the distance is only fifty miles; the pestilence occafioned by famine is better prevented than cured.

I will leave it to others to declare the

causes of the uncertain fall of rain at the mouths of great rivers, for Egypt is remarkable for drought, and the Goadaveri spreads out into a Delta at Rajamundry in the fame manner as the Nile, fo that its mouths occupy fifty miles of the sea coast; and the Kifina likewife falls into the sea in the fame manner about fifty miles fouth of the Goadaveri, and their waters are united on the intermediate flat country in the months of July and Auguft when they overflow their banks.

It is curious that these two great rivers should proceed in oppofite directions to join their waters in a country where, perhaps from the caufes you have mentioned, of the participation of different monfoons, the fall of rain is moft irregular and uncertain; one thing, however, is most certain, that the bulk of mankind reap little benefit from fpeculative obfervations, otherwise the waters of these rivers would long ere this time have been converted to the purposes of agriculture. I have heard fay, for I was never at the place, that near Temericotta the Kiftna is precipitated from rocks feventy

feet, which is a fufficient height to carry its waters over the Palnaud and Guntoor countries, and ftreams from the Goadaveri might no doubt be carried over the Muftaphanagur, Ellore, and Rajamundry Circars, as even in the first week of June, when its waters are at the loweft, the channel in its bed is never lefs than a quarter of a mile in width and three feet in depth of running water*. Dr. Anderfon's letter is dated in August 1792. Dr. Roxburgh's letter, the October 1792, and Captain George Baker's, November 1792, had been laid before Sir Charles Oakeley, the Governor of Madras, by Mr. Andrew Rofs, who immediately reprefented the whole to the Marquis Cornwallis, and obtained his warmeft affurances of co-operating and affifting the benevolent intentions of the Madras Government.

I do not pass over Lord Cornwallis's humanity in this inftance coldly, to make remarks, which fome may think unnecef

* Some additional Letters by James Anderfon, M. D. and A. M., &c. Madras, 1793.