report of the 22d Sept. 1809, on the general state of the police in Bengal. Speaking of our own Daroghas, or police officers, who appear to have been vested with powers equal to those of a justice of peace in England, he describes them as an actual " pest to the country, "from their avarice and addiction to every

species of extortion." Though vested with such important powers, they are represented as persons possessing no previous instruction as to the nature and extent of their duties; nor habits of life which would fit them for the performance of those duties with effect. Their agency in furnishing information is also stated to be ineffectual; and the crimes, commited by themselves numerous. By an ab"stract (Mr. Dowdeswell observes) which I "caused to be prepared from the records of

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66

my office, it appears that 84 Daroghas were

"dismissed from their offices for misconduct "between the 1st of January 1808 and the "31st of August 1809; and that seven of those "persons were ordered to be tried before the "criminal courts on account of the aggra"vating circumstances with which the offences "committed by them were attended.

"The number of persons so punished will "doubtless appear considerable; but great "as it is, I believe it bears no more propor

tion to the number of offences actually com"mitted by the Darogahs, than the number of "crimes reported by them bears to the number "of crimes actually perpetrated within the "limits of the different Tannahs."*

Frightful as this state of society must have been, with one expedient after another aggravating (as indeed is generally the case) the evil they were intended to cure, it does not appear to have attracted any marked attention on the part of Government till the year 1808; although Decoity had encreased both in frequency and enormity, ever since the year 1792. Neither does it appear that any fixed notions were entertained as to the real cause of so enormous an evil. When Decoity in one season was more prevalent than in another, we find it ascribed to a scarce crop, release of ordinary prisoners from confinement, absence of magistrates, or want of European assistants; and sometimes, for want of better reasons, to general defect of the system; to anything, in short, but a permanent cause. In reports unconnected with Decoity, we have frequent intimations of the poverty of the people, leading them to the commission of great crimes; and of the pressure of revenue, and the exaction of revenue servants being the occasion of po5th Rep. p. 612.

verty.* But in treating of Decoity it has never, that I know of, been connected with the revenue systems of India, as effect and cause, although the connection would seem to be obvious, and easily traced.

In many instances, Decoitys have been committed by ousted Zemindars, whose estates had been sold for arrears of revenue and who took these means to revenge themselves on the purchasers; in other instances by Ryots driven to it by extreme poverty.†

No stronger collateral proof can, perhaps, exist of the heavy pressure of financial rapacity, restraints on industry, and misery and starvation, than the circumstance of individuals being driven, by their agency, to practise enormities so unnatural, and so opposed to all the habits of civilized life. Throughout the whole period of the Mahomedan government in India, gangs of robbers infested every

* In a report of Mr. Secretary Dowdeswell, of the 22nd Sept. 1809, 5th Report, App. 12, there is a list of 33 Decoits brought to trial before the Nizamut Adawlut. Of these, 14 were cultivators and labourers, with 2 beggars, and 11 Chokeydars and Peons, or police and revenue officers. The cultivators, labourers, and beggars, may easily be accounted for; of the Chokeydars and Peons we can only presume that their share of official perquisites did not equal their expectations; and therefore, that they had recourse to more speedy methods of enriching themselves.

+ Vide supra, p. 64.

part of the country; and wherever our dominion has been extended the practice is still found universally prevalent. From the long habit of predatory association, and each assuming, or being known by, a certain name, they have generally been considered as distinct tribes. But oppression and want first drove them to the jungle; where their ranks continue to be recruited by the destitute, and desperate, of all castes. And if these causes have invariably produced these effects in other parts of India, * how comes it to pass that in the fertile plains of Bengal, with a population perhaps the most submissive and timid in all Hindostan, Decoity should continue to rear its terrific head, in spite of all the expedients and contrivances set on foot to suppress it? If Mahomedan exactions in Bengal gave birth to Decoity, our adoption of the Mahomedan system is a sufficient and obvious reason for its continuance under our administration. We need seek for no other cause. It is no answer to this argument, to say that the revenues of Bengal now bear light on all classes,

For the general prevalence of gang-robbery throughout India, vide Vol. I. p. 260–266, and the authorities there referred to.

and are easily collected; therefore the pres sure of the revenue can no longer be considered as a cause of Decoity. I have shewn, in a former Chapter (Vol. I. page 591) that some improvement has taken place in the state of Bengal, and pointed out what I conceive to be its real cause; but the quotations I have given from official records prove incontrovertibly, that the Ryots are, down to the present hour, as much harassed, oppressed, and drained, as ever; and it is also true, that Decoity having grown up through a course of ages into a settled habit and pursuit, the country, in which it prevails, might go on advancing in prosperity, through several generations, before it is finally suppressed.

Meanwhile the existence of the evil is undeniable; our own records down to a late period proving it to be as prevalent, even in our best and most fertile districts, and as little susceptible of remedy, as in the days of Mussulman sway, when it is recorded by their own historians that intolerable exactions caused Ryots to abandon their lands in despair, and to turn robbers for want of employment. * When Hanno sent forth his flocks of starlings to proclaim him as "Deus Hanno"

* Vide Vol. I. p. 625.