from this beegah, yielding a profit of six rupees? If it lay in Bengal or Behar, it would be, according to Mr. Colebrooke, a fraction above ONE-FOURTH OF A RUPEE! for he rates the average number of beegahs in those provinces cultivated at 95,000,000, and the land-tax was 25,000,000 of rupees*.

So that, as usual, we find on analyzing this author's statement, instead of " the land-tax being nine-tenths of the rent," it is, as above, just one twenty-fourth, that is one twenty-fourth part of the produce, after paying the expense of rearing it; leaving the rémaining twenty-three twenty-fourths as a clear profit to the landholders who shall choose to take the trouble of cultivating.

It is surely needless to go beyond this on the subject of our author's "Territorial System." His next labour is bestowed in shewing us, very complacently, how we are to abolish the EastIndia Company, and to manage India after the abolition: to abolish that Company, whose interests, he tells us, are so diametrically opposed to those of India, who, in spite of the revelations of Mr. Ricardo and the modern economists, have been guilty of the unpardonable obstinacy of adhering to the ancient transgression of consolidating every species of taxation into the dues levied from the land, and of the unparalleled oppression of wringing these from the "life-blood of the people," to the unheard-of amount of no less than ONE THIRTY-SIXTH PART OF THE PRODUCE!!!

But as there is really nothing in this division of our author's labour to defray the expense of extracting, I shall let it remain where it is; and take leave of a work which certainly has afford

* See Husbandry of Bengal, and the printed Revenue Accounts.

éd

ed me no pleasure in perusing, and as little information on the subjects of which it treats.

Though quite unnecessary for a writer on India affairs to apologize for sending an anonymous production to the press, the practice having been so general among them, my reason is, that

as

I cannot flatter myself that my name will add to, it is but fair that I should not suffer it to detract from the weight due to my opinions.

February 6, 1824.

OBSERVATIONS,

&c. &c.

CHAP. I.

On the Law and Constitution of India.

THE British Legislature has declared that "the Indian "subjects of Britain shall be protected in their rights "according to the laws and constitution of India." But what laws and constitution" are here meant, it has been doubted whether the lawgivers themselves knew. It is assumed, indeed, that laws and a constitution do exist; but that a matter so important should remain ambiguous-that the "laws and the constitution," by which the rights of so large a portion of the human race are here commanded to be protected, should not be known,. is truly marvellous.

After so many years of British government of India, one might expect, at least, that there had been no want of endeavour, on the part of its rulers, to discover what "laws and constitution" did exist in India, and to expound the law, for the guidance of their subjects in obeying, and of their judges in administering it; and we accordingly find that some of its greatest governors have been most anxious in the attempt. But, whether the means adopted were insufficient I know not: certain it is, they have failed; for when we turn for information to what

B

what has been written on the subject, we are forced to lay down the unsatisfactory volumes in profound mortifi

cation.

Almost any kind of regular government, following the distracted and tyrannical misrule which pervaded India during the decline and fall of the Moghul empire, could ⚫ not fail to be hailed as a blessing by the inhabitants of that kingdom; and to this it is, probably, we owe the acquiescence of our Indian subjects in our judicial system, more than to any real excellence of its own. Assuredly, however, it is unworthy of the high character justly maintained by the Indian government in other departments, to rest satisfied, in this, with the mere acquiescence of their people: a people, too, but little skilled in the affairs of government (or, if informed, only taught in the school of anarchy and corruption), and to suffer them to be governed by laws, and by "regulations and laws," such as those now prevalent in India; enacted, doubtless, with the very best intention, but being founded on no system, have been made to partake of all, and are now become a compound of legislation to which no parallel is to be found.

66

So long ago as the year 1807, a "Digest of the Regulations and Laws enacted by the Governor-General "in Council for the Civil Government of the Territories

under the Bengal Presidency," was published by Sir J. E. Colebrooke. This "Digest" consists of no less than three ponderous folio volumes. We may conjecture the enormous mass whence so copious a digest was produced.

But the reader will be still more surprised, when he is told that this immense body of "rule and regulation,"

instead