1 CHAP. XIV. On the Benefit of Parliamentary Control. AFTER Lord Clive had ftated the neceffity of control to preferve the principles of Government in India, endangered by licentiousness, extortion, venality, and by whatever eludes, though it may not totally fubvert, the laws *, the Company thought it neceffary to adopt very arbitrary rules, which they promulgated in general orders to narrow the appeal of covenanted servants to justice, denouncing immediate difmiffion from their fervice to every fervant who should go to Europe to institute a fuit, or feek redrefs for grievances and had the covenanted fervants, according to thefe orders, remitted their complaints, perhaps through the very perfon complained of, no rule or period was limited for their expectation of the determination of the Directors. In 1785 the Directors + In 1771 and 1778. * Vide page 310. not only informed the governments in India that if "copies of any papers, correfpondance or records, fhall be discovered with any perfons not warranted to have them, at home or abroad, we shall take measures to discover by what means the communications have been made, and difmifs from our service those who shall have made fuch communication," but also denounced "the feverest tokens of difpleafure to those who difobeyed their order to difcontinue unreferved correfpondance with private persons on public affairs.” Parliamentary investigation demonftrated that the act of 1784 could not be inveloped and executed in mystery; the records of the Company were opened to committees, and their contents made the fubject of parliamentary debate. Mr. Macpherson's recorded opinion was quoted* by Mr. Francis." I should be particularly happy to fee the Committee in a capacity to execute these important duties, independant of that general agency and improper * Parliamentary Debates, vol. 39, p. 108. PP authority of a native Dewan, or, in plain English, native Chancellor of the Exchequer." The opinion on which this expec tation was founded was referred to in the Houfe, foon after its arrival in Europe, by a Member of the Board of Control, and those who got accefs to Mr. Grant's analyfis of the revenues of Bengal were encouraged to proceed, by being informed in the first page, that evidence of the mifmanagement of natives had been kept back, and the ftale excufe of the troubles of Coffim Alli had till then been accepted as an apology for withholding vouchers; and that the act of 1784 may be confidered truely as the great charter of rights, if not to the whole body of national reprefentatives in Afia, at leaft to all East-India fubjects of Great Britain, who enjoy the ineftimable advantage of living under a delegated fway, thus tempered for the first time in Hindoftan, with the mildeft influence of practical enlarged diftributive juftice." * Lord Frederick Campbell. Parliamentary Debates. The law as yet feems only declaratory as to the neceffary refponfible agents between the Prince and the peasant for ma naging Zemindary or landed interests of the ftate, restoring right and jurisdiction in all their plenitude according to the conftitution of India; every hint to ascertain the nature and mode of management, former and actual amount of the established revenue of the Soubah of Bengal, will be connected with the honour of the British nation.' * Dr. Robertfon, in 1791, had obferved, in his note concerning the tenure by which the Reyuts of Hindoftan hold their poffeffions, " although it be a point extremely interefting, as the future fyftem of British finance in India appears to hinge in an effential degree upon it, perfons well acquainted with the ftate of India have not been able thoroughly to make up their minds upon this fubject +." Though 66 * Historical Difquifition concerning İndia, p. 346. + Kirkpatrick's Introduction to the Inftit. of Ghazan Khan. the opinion of the Committee of Revenue, composed of perfons eminent for their abilities, leans to a conclufion against the hereditary right of the Zemindars in the foil, yet the Supreme Council, in 1786, declined, for good reasons, to give any decifive judgement on a subject of such magnitude. This note was fent to the press before I had it in my power to peruse Mr. Roufe's ingenious and instructive differtation concerning the landed property of Bengal; in it he adopts an opinion contrary to that of Mr. Grant, and maintains, with that candor and liberality of fentiment which are always confpicuous where there is no other object than the discovery of truth, that the Zemindars poffefs their landed property by hereditary right." In the former part of this note*, that learned and much-lamented hiftoriographer to His Majefty had stated, "that the Monarchs of India were the fole proprietors of land, is afferted in moft explicit terms by the ancients: the people (fay they) pay a land tax to their Kings because the kingdom is * Hiftorical Difquifition, p. 344. |