CHAP. 1.

BOOK V. in the act. Mr. Hastings had ascended with repu tation through the several stages of the Company's 1772. service; possessed the rank of a member of council at the time of Mr. Vansittart's administration, and generally concurred in the measures which the party opposed to that Governor so vehemently condemned. After a visit to his native country, to which he proceeded at the same time with Vansittart, he returned to India, in 1769, to fill the station of second in council at Madras; and in the beginning of 1772 was raised to the highest situation in the service of the Company, being appointed to succeed Mr. Cartier in the government of Bengal.

The sense which the Directors entertained of the vices which up to this time had stained their administration in India, is recorded thus: "We wish (the words of their letter to the President and Council at Fort William, dated the 7th of April, 1773,) "we could refute the observation, that almost every attempt made by us and our administrations at your Presidency, for the reforming of abuses, has rather increased them-and added to the miseries of the country we are anxious to protect and cherish. The truth of this observation appears fully in the late appointment of supervisors and chiefs-instituted, as they were, to give relief to the industrious tenants, to improve and enlarge our investments, to destroy monopolies, and retrench expenses, the end has, by no means, been answerable to the institution. Are not the tenants, more than ever, oppressed and wretched? Are our investments improved? Has not the raw silk and cocoons been raised upon us fifty per cent. in price? We can hardly say what

СНАР. 1.

1772

has not been made a monopoly. And as to the ex- BOOK V. penses of your Presidency, they are at length settled to a degree we are no longer able to support. These facts (for such they are) should have been stated to us as capital reasons, why neither our orders of 1771, nor indeed any regulations whatever, could be carried into execution. But, perhaps, as this would have proved too much, it was not suggested to us; for nothing could more plainly indicate a state of anarchy, and that there was no government existing, in our servants in Bengal... When oppression pervades the whole country; when youths have been suffered with impunity to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the natives; and to acquire rapid fortunes by monopolizing of commerce, it cannot be a wonder to us, or yourselves, that native merchants do not come forward to contract with the Company; that the manufactures find their way through foreign channels; or that our investments are at once enormously dear, and of a debased quality.—It is evident then, that the evils which have been so destructive to us, lie too deep for any partial plans to reach or correct. It is, therefore, our resolution to aim at the root of those evils." Their expectation of assistance from Mr. Hastings in these reforms, was expressed in the following terms: "Our President, Mr. Hastings, we trust, will set the example of temperance, economy, and application; and upon this we are sensible, much will depend. And here we take occasion to indulge the pleasure we have in acknowledging Mr. Hastings's services upon the coast of Coromandel, in constructing with equal labour and ability, the plan which has so much

CHAP. 1.

BOOK V. improved our investments there; and as we are persuaded he will persevere, in the same laudable 1772. pursuit, through every branch of our affairs in Bengal, he, in return, may depend on the steady support and favour of his employers."1

The double, or ambiguous administration; in name and in ostent by the Nabob, in reality by the Company; which had been recommended as ingenious policy by Clive, and admired as such by his employers and successors; had contributed greatly to enhance the difficulties in which, by the assumption of the government, the English were involved. All the vices of the ancient polity were saved from reform and all the evils of a divided authority were superinduced. The revenues were under a complicated, wasteful, and oppressive economy; the lands being partly managed by the native agents of the collectors, partly farmed from year to year, partly held by Zemindars, and Talookdars, responsible for a certain revenue. The administration of justice, of which, under the military and fiscal Governors of the Mogul provinces, the criminal part belonged to the Nazim, or military Governor, the civil to the Dewan, or fiscal Governor, was, as a heavy and unproductive burden, left in the hands of the Nabob; who, being totally without power, was totally unable to maintain the authority of his tribunals against the masters of the country; and the people were given up to oppression.2

'Minutes of Evidence on Mr. Hastings' Trial, p. 966.

This is expressly stated by Hastings, and the Committee of Revenue, in their letter of the 3rd of Nov. 1772, in the Sixth Report of the Committee of Secrecy, in 1773.

СНАР.1.

1772.

The Company and their servants were little satis- BOOK V. fied, from the beginning, with the produce of the dewannee; and soon began to be as little satisfied with the expedients adopted by Clive for ensuring a faithful collection. In the month of August, 1769, before the close of Mr. Verelst's administration, a supplementary security was devised: It was held expedient, that servants of the Company should be stationed in appropriate districts, throughout the whole country, for the purpose of superintending the native officers; both in the collection of the revenue, and, what was very much blended with it, the administration of justice. These functionaries received the title of Supervisors: And, in the next year, was added a second supplementary security; two councils, with authority over the supervisors, one at Moorshedabad, and another at Patna.

Among the duties recommended to the supervisors, one was to collect a body of information, with respect to the amount of the revenues; with respect to the state, produce, and capabilities of the great source of the revenue, the lands; with respect to the cesses or arbitrary taxes; the whole catalogue of imposts laid upon the cultivator; the manner of collecting them, and the origin and progress of all the modern exactions; with respect to the regulations of commerce; and the administration of justice. The reports of the supervisors, intended to convey the information which they collected under those heads, represent the government as having attained the last stage of oppressiveness and barbarism. "The Nazims exacted what they could from the Zemindars, and great farmers of the revenue; whom they left at

CHAP. 1.

BOOK V. liberty to plunder all below; reserving to themselves the prerogative of plundering them in their turn, 1772. when they were supposed to have enriched themselves with the spoils of the country." The Select Committee of the House of Commons, in 1810, quoting this passage, remark, " The whole system thus resolved itself, on the part of the public officers, into habitual extortion and injustice; which produced, on that of the cultivator, the natural consequences—concealment and evasion, by which government was defrauded of a considerable part of its just demands." With respect to the administration of justice, the supervisors reported, "That the regular course was every where suspended: But every man exercised it, who had the power of compelling others to submit to his decisions." The Committee of the House of Commons, whose remark on the state of the fiscal collections has just been adduced, subjoin to this quotation that which fills up the picture; "Seven years had elapsed, from the acquisition of the dewannee, without the government deeming itself competent to remedy these defects."1

Grievously disappointed in their expectations of treasure, the Directors resolved to break through the scheme of ambiguity; so far at least as to take into their own hands the collection as well as the disbursement of the revenues. In their letter to the President and Council of Fort William, dated the 28th of August, 1771, they declared their resolution, "To stand forth as Dewan" (so they were pleased to express it), "and by the agency of the Company's servants

Fifth Report of the Select Committee, 1810, p. 5.