one

wallis established the perpetual settlement of the revenues, third part was a wilderness.' Abuses equally great prevailed in the collection of the customs, which were chiefly levied at the discretion of the zemindars and farmers, who erected toll-houses without restriction; and exacted tolls without regulation; and thus the internal trade of the country was liable to endless impediments and indefinite extortion.'

The judicial department was not less corrupt than that of the finance. In the metropolis of the province, the Nazim presided in the trial of capital offences: the Foujidar in that of all other criminal matters. There were three chief civil magistrates. The Darogah Adawlut al Aulea (the Nazim's deputy) tried all causes relating to personal property, and took cognizance of quarrels or affrays. The Darogah Adawlut Dewannee (the Dewan's deputy) tried causes of real property: the Cazee those relating to claims of inheritance or succession. Neither the constitutions nor the respective functions of those three courts were accurately defined. The first two were perpetually encroaching on each other, and the Cazee was not nice in determining a cause without the assistance, or even knowledge of those who should by law have been his coadjutors.

In all criminal matters, Hindoos as well as Mussulmans were subject to the Mahomedan code. By this law, murder is regarded as a crime solely against the individual, and the punishment of the murderer is awarded on the basis of retaliation. On this ground the heirs of the deceased, or the master, if he was a slave, must inflict it, if it be inflicted at all, with their own hands. The obvious deductions from such a doctrine, which were actually admitted under the Mahomedan government of Bengal, are most important.

No man is punishable for the murder of his own slave; for, in that case, he would commit the practical absurdity of retaliating on himself. No man is punishable for the murder of his child, grandchild, or other descendant; for resuming a life which he himself has bestowed, he is only considered as liquidating an outstanding account. So monstrous an exemplification of the rule, though undoubtedly conceded by the Mahomedan law, can seldom, it may be hoped and believed, take place; but others, not far less shocking, were, in Bengal, of daily occurrence. The life of the murderer being forfeited to the heir or the master, the heir or the master was very consistently authorised, either to remit the penalty altogether, or to accept in lieu of it a sum of money. In consequence of this liberty it is plain that every man lay entirely at the mercy of those who were to inherit his estate; and, at all events, the fact is, that compositions for murder were notoriously frequent under the native government of Bengal.'

The nature of the offence is as ill defined as the principle of its

punishment

punishment is defective. The evidence of a murderous intention is not left to be collected from the circumstances of the case, but depends on rules not less whimsical than preposterous.

'Death, by the iron edge of an hoe or spade, is generally reputed to be murder: whether death, by the iron back of the instrument, be murder, is disputed; but all agree that it is not murder when inflicted by the wooden handle. According to some of the highest legal authorities, it is not murder to destroy a man wilfully, either by severe flagellation, or by keeping him in cold water, in the winter season, or by exposing him, bound hand and foot, to the summer sun, or by throwing him from the roof of a house, or into a well; and it is the concurrent opinion of all the best commentators, that it is not murder to destroy a man wilfully by poison, or by throwing him, bound hand and foot, to be devoured by wild beasts.'

This is not the mere theory of the Mahomedan law. Mr. Grant quotes a case, recorded by Mr. Hastings, of a wretch who cruelly held the head of a female child under water till she was suffocated, in order that he might make prize of her clothes and ornaments, and who, on being convicted of the offence before one of the native courts, was punished only by a fine.*

The dispensation of the Mahomedau law to all the classes of Hindoo society, in criminal matters, was cruel and oppressive in the extreme. Even in civil matters, it was a great favour to allow them to refer their disputes to their own Brahmins: but if one of the parties was a Mahomedan, the matter was determined by the Mahomedan law. The extraordinary partiality for ancient usages and institutions was totally disregarded. Our minds,' says Mr. Grant, 'must revolt at a system which prescribed to this order of men a violation of their most rooted feelings, as the only price of that justice which every people has a right to demand at the hands of its rulers.'

Much might be said on the well known corruption and venality of the judges, and of the extortions of the inferior officers of the courts; of the ready instruments of oppression which tribunals, thus constituted, were in the hands of a tyrannical government-of the virtual exclusion of the poorer members of society from the protection of the law from the extensiveness of the districts, and the stationary position of the courts; but these are evils that may occur in the practical execution of the best of laws. The police was miserably defective. Robbers by profession, called decoits, plundered in open day with as much insolence and activity, and

It is recommended by Sir H. Strachey, that effectual steps be taken to prevent the wearing of valuable ornaments by children, who are frequently murdered for the sake of them. Fifth Report from the Select Committee. Appendix, No. 11.

far

far more cruelty, than our highwaymen, or the gangs of pick-pockets in the streets of London. These banditti were often in league with the village people, and with the zemindars and other landholders, who gave them impunity and intelligence, in exchange for a share of their plunder. The victim of this bargain was the ryot, against whom all the depredations of the robbers were directed.'*

In fine, of the general insecurity of rights under the government of the Nabobs, Mr. Grant couceives a very striking idea may be conveyed from the following passage in Mr. Orme's Government and People of Hindostan,' which he further tells us is a fact stated in the Company's records.'

The mechanic or artificer will work only to the measure of his necessities. He dreads to be distinguished. If he becomes too noted for having acquired a little more money than others of his craft, that will be taken from him. If conspicuous for the excellence of his skill, he is seized upon by some person in authority, and obliged to work for

We are grieved to observe that decoity, or gang robbery, has rather increased under the British government. Nothing that we have ever heard of, in any country, can be compared with the atrocities committed by these gangs of decoits. The following relation of the prosecutor on a trial of decoits, exhibits a horrible picture of human depravity. He states that about twelve o'clock, on the night on which the robbery and murders took place, he was sleeping in a house, at a short distance from that of his father, and being awoke by the noise of robbers, went out, and saw that a party of about fifty decoits had attacked his father's house; that, from fear, he concealed himself in a plaintain garden, within fifty yards of the spot, from whence he saw the robbers drag out his father and mother; and, after binding their hands and feet, apply lighted straw and torches to their bodies, demanding of them, at the same time, to point out where their money was concealed; that the unfortunate people assured them they had none; but that tire robbers, proving inexorable, went into the house, and brought from it a quantity of hemp, which they twisted round the body of Loharam, and, after pouring on it ghee, or clarified butter, to render it more inflammable, set fire to it; that they then procured a quilt from the house, which they also moistened with ghee, and rolled round the body of Loharanı: that the prisoners threw the prosecutor's father on the ground, and, keeping him down with a bamboo which they held over his breast, set fire to the quilt; that, at this time, the cries of the unfortunate man were most shocking, the robbers continually calling on him to tell where his money was, and he assuring them that he had none, and imploring them to take his cows, or any thing they might find in his house; that the robbers, however, still proceeded to further cruelty. Having procured some mustard seed, and torn up the flesh of Loharam's breast, by drawing a large bamboo several times across it, pounded the mustard seed on the sores, with a view to make the torment more excruciating; that at the same time the mother of the prosecutor was tortured nearly in the same manner, by the robbers tying hemp round her body, and setting fire to it, and dragging her about, from place to place, by the hair of her head, calling on her all the while to tell them where her husband's money was concealed; and also calling on the prosecutor by name, to come and witness the state of his father and mother; that these cruelties, together with the plunder of the house of Lobaram, and other ones adjacent, continued until between three or four o'clock in the morning, at which time the robbers departed, and that the prosecutor, on going up to his father and mother, found them most dreadfully mangled, but still alive; that his father expired about noon, and his mother not till the following morning. The prisoners, whom the prosecutor swore to have recognized at the murder of his parents, were nine, all of whom were sentenced to suffer death.' Fifth Report from the Select Committee. Appendix, No. 12.

him night and day, on much harder terms than his usual labour acquired when at liberty.'-p. 41.

Such was the actual condition of the Mogul provinces when the East India Company acquired territorial power in Bengal. As a contrast to this dark, but by no means overcharged' picture, we now proceed to sketch a general outline of the government as established in British India in the course of the last thirty years.* To do this it will not be necessary to follow Mr. Grant through his description of the legislative and executive functions of the home government of India, vested in the court of directors, as the organ of the East India Company, the Board of Control, and the parliament, nor to discuss the expediency of conferring discretionary powers on the local governments to ensure greater energy of condect, or of imposing checks for the better security against abuses. We shall merely observe that the Governor General of India stands in the place of the great Mogul, and, though checked by a council, can, at any time, act independently of it, on his individual responsibility: that the members of the council must have resided in India, as servants of the Company, for not fewer than twelve years; that they are to-abstain from all commercial dealings, except on account of the Company, and from the acceptance of all gifts or presents. The East India Company, being a commercial as well as a political body, has occasion for two great wheels to keep the machinery in motion-the Board of Revenue, and the Board of Trade. The Board of Revenue consists of a president, who is also a member of the council, and three other members of high standing and experience in the Company's service. It superintends the settlement and collection of the land revenues and other taxes, and all concerns connected with them. The Board of Trade, similarly constituted, superintends the commercial concerns of the Company, the collection of the government customs, and the manufacture and delivery of salt and opium.

The collectors of revenue are selected from the regular civil servants, of a standing proportionate to the importance of the district. They have no discretionary power, as under the Mahomedan government, of taxing the land-holders. The lands now bear a fixed rent in perpetuity, a regulation which has for ever choaked up that copious source of abuse which, under the Mahomedan system, flowed down in an enlarged stream along the whole succession of sub-collectors, land-holders, tenants and sub-tenants.' They provide for the management of estates of landholders disquali

The Dewannee of Bengal was obtained by the Company in 1765; their administration of the country commenced in 1770; but the present system dates only from the act of 1784.

VOL. IX. NO. XVII.

P

fied

fied by sex, minority or lunacy, and for the education of such as are minors; they superintend the division of joint estates; procure lands for invalided sepoys, pay pensions, superintend embankments, &c. A collector of revenue is not allowed to trade, nor to hold a farm, nor to lend money to a land-holder; his character is purely ministerial, and not, as under the Mahomedan government, in any shape judicial. He has no power beyond that of bringing defaulters before the regular courts, to which he is himself amenable for irregularities committed in his official capacity. He is obliged to keep a diary of all his proceedings, which is transmitted periodically to the Board of Revenue. It is the duty of that board to inspect those proceedings; to see that the revenues are punctually realized; to superintend the conduct of the collectors; to suspend or report them, in cases of misconduct; to keep regular minutes of its proceedings; to transmit them monthly to the Governor General in council; and to furnish a second copy, to be sent home for the Court of Directors.

The institution of the Board of Trade, its arrangements and proceedings, are precisely similar to those of the Board of Revenue. Every transaction, however trifling, throughout every branch of the two departments, is made a matter of record. It is indeed a distinguishing feature, which pervades the whole administration of India, that every department in the service, and every member of departments, are required to transmit ample minutes of their proceedings to the next highest authority. So universally is this practice enforced, that there is no official servant of the company, however low his situation, or however remote his position from the seat of the local government, whose whole conduct is not stamped on documents placed in the hands of his superiors, and accessible at pleasure to the British parliament.'

6

Of the judicial authorities, some are nominated by the King, others by the Company. The latter are those which possess a general jurisdiction over the natives, both civil and criminal. The number and gradation of criminal courts in the provinces, subject to the Presidency of Fort William, are, a Supreme Court stationed in Calcutta, six Circuit Courts attached to the six districts or divisions, and about forty inferior courts or magistracies dispersed over the three provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa.

The number and gradation of civil judicatures are precisely the same; and though the functions, powers and forms are distinct, the same persons who preside as judges in the Courts of the one class, preside also in the corresponding courts of the other.

The magistrates are appointed from among the civil servants of the Company. They superintend the police, and their duties are not unlike those of a justice of the peace in England. They receive informations,