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FRA DULENT SALES IN THE NORTH-WEST.

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the Nabob of Oude at the beginning of the century. A folio volume of a thousand pages of civil, criminal, and fiscal regulations was immediately inflicted on them, with the most benevolent intentions but the most disastrous result. The astute natives of Bengal did not fail to follow the collector into those provinces. They monopolised every post of power and influence, and by their superior acquaintance with the mysteries of the new system of civil and fiscal law, were enabled to turn the inexperience of the Hindostanees to their own benefit. The zemindars who were now, for the first time, obliged to pay their rents with rigid punctuality, fell into arrears, and were ousted from their lands. The Bengalee officials devised manifold expedients, and often resorted to fraud, to embarrass and confound the simple landholder and bring his estate to the hammer, when it was bought, at first, in some fictitious name, and eventually transferred to the real purchaser. Many of the zemindars, moreover, had been arbitrarily entered as mere farmers in the first rent-roll, which was prepared in haste, and when it came to be subsequently revised found themselves deprived of their estates through the chicanery of the Bengalee officers, who contrived to secure the proprietorship of the lands to their creatures and eventually to themselves. This system of plunder was systematically carried on for many years, and inflicted greater misery on the landed proprietors than the occasional whirlwind of Mahratta desolation. The ease with which the natives of Bengal had acquired possession of property, in one case, of ninety villages, and in another, of even a whole pergunna, attracted others to the quarry, and the raja of Benares, and a wealthy banker of that city obtained property yielding eight lacs of rupees a-year. The estates of the country were gradually passing out of the hands of the ancient aristocracy; they had survived many political revolutions, but were completely prostrated by this process of legal jugglery which was reducing them to the condition of paupers. "Yours," said a high spirited Rajpoot, "is a strange

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DISTURBANCES IN CUTTACK.

[CHAP.

ewer, while you

rule; you flog a man for stealing a brass reward him for stealing a whole pergunna." Mr. Campbell Robertson had endeavoured to protect the rights of the oppressed zemindars, but he was defeated by the stolid judges of the Court of Appeal, and he boldly determined to bring the subject to the notice of the Supreme Government. Lord Hastings and the Council listened to his representations, and a Regulation was passed the preamble of which frankly acknowledged the injustice, and a special commission was appointed to enquire into the transfers of property which had been made during the previous eight years. Some few of the more egregious acts of iniquity were redressed, but in the majority of cases there was no relief.

Disturbances in Cuttack, 1818.

In the province of Cuttack, which was ceded by the raja of Nagpore in 1803, the same cause led to an open insurrection. The natives of Orissa are proverbial for intellectual dulness, and the province has always been considered the Boeotia of India. During the native dynasties, the chief offices of the state were generally occupied by natives from Telingana in the south, or Bengal in the north. On the acquisition of the province by the Company a swarm of Bengalee baboos flocked into it, obtained possession of nearly every post of influence or profit, and took an unfair advantage of the simplicity of the people, and their ignorance of our institutions. The assess ment of the lands, made at random, was thirty per cent. above that of the Mahrattas. It was rigidly enforced, and, combined with the improvidence of the zemindars, brought half the estates in the province to the hammer in a dozen years, when they were bought up by the Bengalee officials, often at a nominal value. The raja of Khoorda, the descendant of an ancient dynasty, who enjoyed the hereditary privilege of sweeping the temple of Jugunnath, had paid the Mahrattas, when they were able to squeeze anything out of him, about 15,000 rupees a-year. He was assessed by the collector at eight times the sum, and dispossessed of his patrimonial

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NEW ARRANGEMENTS IN CUTIA CK.

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estates for default. To add to the wretchedness of the inhabitants, the Company's salt monopoly was introduced and the cost of that necessary of life was raised six-fold to the peasant, in a province where the sea furnished it spontaneously. Under this accumulation of misery the people sold all they possessed, and then their wives and children, and eventually took to the jungle. The country being thus ripe for revolt, one Jugbundoo, the hereditary commander of the old Hindoo rajas, who had been dispossessed of his property, raised the standard of rebellion to which 3,000 of the disaffected immediately flocked. He plundered and burnt the civil station of Khoorda and repulsed two detachments of sepoys which were sent against him. This success served to increase his force, and he proceeded to take possession of the town of Jugunnath; the fort, buildings, and bungalows were set on fire, and the collector retreated with the treasure to Cuttack. No injury was inflicted on any but the tyrannical and odious native functionaries. But the triumph of the insurgents was short; reinforcements poured into the province and dispersed them. The people were assured that their grievances would be redressed if they were peaceably represented, and they at once submitted to the authority of Government. A special commissioner was appointed to the charge of the province; some who had been taken in arms were executed; the most notorious of the oppressive officials were punished, and the assessment was reduced forty per cent. The province has since enjoyed the services of a succession of able Bengal civilians, Wilkinson, Sterling, Packenham, and others, and its tranquillity has never been disturbed. Another proof has thus been afforded of the fact that with a mild assessment, congenial institutions, and an equitable administration, there is perhaps no country more easy to govern than India, even under foreigners.

Financial and territorial

increase, 1822.

In reviewing the pecuniary results of Lord Hastings' administration, it is pleasing to observe that, notwithstanding the expensive war which

364

FINANCIAL PROSPERITY.

[CHAP

lasted eighteen months in the mountains of Nepal, and the assembly of eight armies in the field during the Mahratta and Pindaree campaign, the finances of the Company were at no former period in so flourishing a condition as at the close of his administration. The Government bonds which at his arrival were at twelve per cent. discount, were at a premium of fourteen per cent. at his departure. The debt had indeed increased by four crores and a half during his administration; on the other hand, the cash balances in the various treasuries exceeded the sum in hand when he landed by five crores of rupees, but on grounds which every real Indian statesman will admit, he forebore to reduce those balances for the mere ostentation of paying off debt. The increase of annual receipts was equivalent to six crores of rupees, without the imposition of a single new tax; and the increase of expenditure about four crores, leaving a clear surplus revenue of two crores of rupees a-year; the year 1822 may, therefore, be considered as the brightest period of the finances of the Indian empire, when they exhibited such prosperity as they had never reached before, and have never reached since. If the military operations of this period resulted in an increase of territory, it will not be deemed matter of surprise or regret. Lord Hastings commenced the Pindaree war with the confident hope that the pacification of India would be accomplished without any defalcation from any native state, and without adding a rood to the Company's territories. But "the irrepressible tendency of our Indian power to enlarge its bounds," which Mr. Canning deplored, was fatal to this resolution. The unprovoked aggression and the complete overthrow of the Mahratta powers placed their territories at the absolute disposal of the Company. The larger portion of the dominions of Holkar and of the raja of Nagpore was restored to them, but Lord Hastings considered that the entire annexation of Bajee Rao's kingdom, the principality of Satara excepted, was forced on him by "the imperious necessity of guarding against the speedy renewal

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SINGAPORE.

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of a treachery so rooted in its nature as to admit of no other prevention." These provinces were, therefore, annexed to Bombay which had previously drained the Bengal treasury to the extent of a crore of rupees a-year, but was now enabled in some measure to support its own establishments.

Miscellaneous

By the peace of Paris in 1815 the settlements of notices, 1814-22 the French, the Danes, and the Dutch were restored -Singapore. to them, with the exception of Ceylon; but during the war, trade had been diverted into new channels, and these settlements never recovered their former importance. The island of Java, to the mortification of those who understood its great value, was inconsiderately restored to the Dutch, and it is at present the only Asiatic dependency which contributes an annual revenue to its European master. The influence of the Dutch was thus restored throughout the eastern archipelago, and their ancient spirit of monopoly and hostility to foreign intruders was developed to such an extent as to threaten the entire exclusion of British commerce from those seas. Lord Hastings was fully alive to the importance of this commerce, and, under the advice of Sir Stamford Raffles, who had governed Java while it was in our possession with great ability and success, authorized him to establish a new settlement in the centre of the Malay states. By an unperceived and prompt movement, he obtained the cession of the island of Singapore from the raja of Johore, and hoisted the British colours on the 5th September, 1819. It was, from its commanding position, the key of the gulf of Siam, if not also of the China seas. Such an acquisition did not fail to excite the indignation of the Dutch authorities in Java, who immediately laid claim to it as one of their own possessions. The most strenuous remonstrances were addressed to the English Ministry, and so little were British interests in the east understood in Downing Street, that it was, for a time, seriously contemplated to submit to the demands of the Dutch, to abandon the island, and to recall Sir Stamford for his temerity. After a long period of vacillation, however, the sanction of the