who describes (for example) the nation of the Suevians as divided into 100 Cantons or Pagi, (Nadu), each of which supplied yearly for war 1000 armed men. This law was common to the tribes of Northern invaders, who carried it with them into all the settlements they effected in the South. There the law, termed Herebannum, required of every free man to bear arms, for the common defence subjecting him to a heavy fine for failure in his attendance, when summoned to the field; or, if insolvent, to be reduced to slavery until his labour should amount to the value of his fine;* whilst in the Capitularies of Charlemagne, it is ordained that every freeman who possessed five mansi, or 60 acres, of land in property, should march in person against the enemy.†

From this description of military service from the military habits of native Indians generally, and their attendance

their princes, or Rajas, in war- from its being supposed that landed estates in Canara, and

* Du Cange Voc. Herebannum. "Quicunque liber homo in hoste bannitus fuerit, et venire contempserit, plenum "heribannum componat, secundum legem Francorum, id est "60 solidos (sols) solvat."

+ Rob. Hist. Char. V. vol. i.

other parts, are conditional tenures subject to the payment of a certain revenue to the state --and from the difficulty, perhaps, of shaking off the Mussulman doctrine of the sovereign being also lord paramount of the soil, it has been contended that the Jenm or allodial rights above described, existing in Malabar, as elsewhere, are no other than a "fee-sim"ple or hereditary right of possession, sub"ject to some of those various conditions from which no subject can be exempt."*

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But this is a mistake, arising, perhaps, from confounding Mahomedan with English feodal law. The estates here treated of are not, and never were, fees or fiefs. The proprietors had the “absolutum et directum "dominium," the absolute property or demesne in the land; holding it in their own right, without acknowledgement of service to a sovereign power, or superior lord; and though the present race of proprietors, or part of them, being originally perpetual tenants, may be thought to have had only the

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jus perpetuum et utile dominium," in their lands; yet on the extinction, or extirpation of the superior lords, or often by purchase, they came to be considered (as they ought to

be) absolute proprietors that is, seized of lands absolutely "in dominico suo," or in their own desmesne.

So late as the year 1818, the Madras Board of Revenue have described this right as a mere "hereditary possession, and usufruct of

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the soil, known by the term Jenm, or birth

right;"* but this, also, is a misconstruction. In all the Hindoo countries, where primitive institutions are still traceable, I believe it will be invariably found that there existed, from time immemorial, both allodial and usufructuary occupants of the soil; and that these were, generally speaking, distinct persons. The Jenm, Swamy Bhogum, Caniatchy, or Meerassy right, is a pure allodium, not a feudum, nor a simple usufructus; and so precious is this right, in the eye of the proprietor, that, after the whole substance of his estate has passed away to mortgagees or others, he still retains the Jenm as a valuable property, for which, though but a shadow, a price would readily be given; but which is held by its hereditary owners with the utmost tenacity, and, therefore, but rarely parted with. The usufructuaries are the different tenants, and mortgagees, above described,

* Mad. Rev. Sel. vol. i. p. 889.

sometimes called "subordinate landlords." They have liens on the profits and produce of the land amounting to property, which is hereditary, and may be transferred, or mortgaged, and in some cases sold; but in no case can they inherit, transfer, mortgage, or sell the land itself, or the Jenm right. In times of trouble and confusion, when allodial proprietors have disappeared, become extinct, or been induced, by distress, to sell this last hold on their estates, the usufructuaries have stepped into their places; and where no superior right can be established, the usufructuary, whether he has purchased the superior right, or not, becomes the fittest person to be acknowleged as Jenmkar, Swamy Bhogamkar, Canyatchikar, or Meerasseedar.*

It is, indeed, to be lamented that these primitive rights were not discovered by the British Government at an earlier period.

* Vide note, p. 239.

SECTION XV.

Real landed proprietors discovered to exist in the provinces subject to the Bengal Government.

ON our acquisition of the Dewanny, in Bengal, Mahomedan severity and usurpation had so effaced these rights, that no trace of them is to be found in the proceedings of the constituted authorities. The Mussulman doctrine of the sovereign being sole proprietor, was then universally prevalent. The same impression existed in 1789, and 1793, on the formation of the Permanent Settlement in Bengal; and estates were accordingly conveyed in full property to the Rajas, and great Zemindars of the lower provinces, subject to the condition of a certain annual revenue; but in utter ignorance of the territorial rights of other classes; although partial proofs of the existence of Maliks, and village Zemindars, in some of the provinces, might, one would suppose, have caused official persons to pause, and enquire, ere they dealt out the whole landed property of the country with such profuse, and, as now appears, inconsiderate, liberality. The mischiefs and injustice occasioned by this hasty step, have been already