main object in view-effectual protection to the Ryots are thus multiplied instead of being diminished. In the hopelessness of redress, who would have the courage to complain? Oppression and exaction are borne as long as endurance is practicable; and the delusive tranquillity of submission and despair is thus but too often mistaken for symptoms of content, if not of increasing prosperity.

Down to the latest period to which the printed Indian records extend, we have no better account of the state of the Ryots in the interior provinces. Change after change has been attempted. From the Aumanee system, or division of produce, to the farming system, the Zemindary, the Mootahdary, the Ryotwary, and the Mouzawary settlements, names only have changed. The fundamental principle, and operation, of the system have been invariably the same— an exorbitant revenue, with a numerous host of uncontrouled and uncontroulable servants to collect it. It has been urged, however, and may, to a limited degree, be admitted, that, in the hands of some collectors, the system has worked well; whence it is concluded that it ought to succeed in all cases, if collectors do their duty. The examples chiefly dwelt upon are those of Colonel Read in Bara

mahl, and Colonel (Sir Thomas) Munro in the ceded districts. Colonels Read and Munro were unquestionably two of the most distinguished revenue servants that India has produced; and the provinces committed to their management, exhibited signs of tranquillity, and even of improvement, as long as they were administered by the superior energy, talent, and conciliatory demeanour of these remarkable men; but all collectors are not Reads or Munros; and unless our system be adapted to ordinary energies, and ordinary capacities, the benefits of one good administration may be wholly subverted by its successor. Proofs of this position abound in the Indian records, in reference, too, to countries which have been upwards of half a century in our possession; but - but what is more remarkable-the very provinces once administered by Colonels Read and Munro, and where the success of the system is so often boasted to have been complete, are the parts in which we now trace the most signal instances of failure, disorder, oppression and misery. In Vol. I. p. 451, we have already seen what the state of Baramahl was in 1821, on the evidence of Sir Thomas Munro himself; whilst the Revenue Board assures us, (Vide supra, p. 118.), that this province suf

fered more, from the peculation and corruption of native agents, even than Coimbetoor. Of the ceded districts we have the testimony of the collector of Bellary, and of the Revenue Board, as to that province being in much the same state of disorder and crime. In 1810, it is stated, that ever since the year 1806-7, on the departure of Colonel Munro, over-exaction pressed so hard on the Ryots -"many of them formerly substantial farmers "who paid very high rents to Government,'

as to have driven several thousands from their homes and connections, and forced them to migrate into Mysore. Neither have we any reason for supposing that the evil has been since abated; for in 1820, the abuses of native public servants are again forcibly pressed on the attention of the authorities at the Presidency. The collector, in reporting the progress he had made in reducing assessments, urgently solicits that he may be vested with powers to protect the Ryots from the exactions to which they were then subject, and to punish bribery and corruption among his servants, and because also, as he observes, what is remitted by Government will otherwise be collected from the Ryots both by the servants of the Cutchery, and those of the villages. In 1821, it is further added, that the collector's repre

sentations on this head are "confirmed by "the observation of every criminal and cir"cuit judge, that a vast proportion of the "crimes committed in this district are perpetrated with the knowledge, if not at the instigation, of certain heads of villages, and "the village police.”*

66

This, then, is one of the effects-and a most important one-of our Indian financial system. To ascribe this mass of evils to innate depravity of character in the natives would be worse than puerile. Under the same circumstances, and exposed to the same temptations, there is no people on earth, whatever may be the colour of their skins, who would not fall into the same vices, or naturally adopt the same habits. It is the system itself which generates, matures, and perpetuates the whole evil. It commenced in error; it has been continued through a long train of oppressive exactions, which our ablest servants have laboured in vain to alleviate; and it finally fixes its hapless victims "to the galling oar "for life." It counteracts the ordinations of Providence, who called man into being to be blest with the fruits of his own industry. But

* Vide Mad. Rev. Sel. Vol. I. p. 544, and Vol. III. p. 565.

here he toils, as if in Egyptian bondage, for others' benefit. Doomed to exist in unimprovable poverty, he sows in wretchedness, and reaps despair.

SECTION VI.

Effects of the System on the conduct and views of Collectors. Hasty additions to the Public Revenue. Sacrifice and violation of private rights. Compulsory surrender of property.

ALTHOUGH the European collectors in India are, I believe, universally free from the charge of corrupt dealing, there is one effect produced on them by our peculiar financial system which must here be noticed. Every collector in India feels, that to increase the revenue committed to his management will be his strongest recommendation to the favour of the higher powers at the Presidency. This increase, commonly called " improvement" can only be drawn from the land, or its occupants; for there are none other to pay it. Some collectors prosecute this object more judiciously than others; still it is the aim of all;