Though the causes which broke the empire were obvious, the decline of the power of the house of Timur was gradual and imperceptible. The seeds of decay were long sown before they were brought to an enormous growth, by the indolence of Mahommed Shaw. Had even the Persian invasion never happened, the fabric which Baber raised in India was destined to fall to ruin. The abilities of Aurungzêbe, by establishing half a century of domestic tranquillity in his dominions, broke the spirit of his subjects, whilst that of the Imperial family declined. The distant provinces obeyed the mandates of the court through habit, more than through fear of its resentment and power; and governors, though destitute of ambition, found, in their own indolence, an excuse for their inattention to commands which could not be enforced with rigour.
The intrigues of the two Seids at the court of Delhi, who raised and removed monarchs at pleasure, weakened that respect for the house of Timur which bound the allegiance of the subject, even after their mildness had degenerated into indolence. Every month brought intelligence into the distant provinces of the murder of one Prince, whilst another was placed on a throne still warm with his predecessor's blood. The veil which hid despotism from the eyes of the people, was rent in twain; monarchs became puppets, which the minister moved at pleasure, and even men who loved slavery on its own account, knew not to what quarter to turn their political devotion. The viceroys, under a pretence of an unsettled succession, retained the revenues of the provinces; and, with specious professions of loyalty for the Imperial family, they became polite rebels against its authority.
Through this debility in the Imperial line, a new species of government rose in various provinces of India. The viceroys, though they assumed the state of Princes, were still the humble slaves of some desolate monarch, who sat without either power or dignity in the midst of the ruins of Delhi. They governed the people in his name, but they listened not to his commands. He even became an instrument of oppression in their hands; and they sanctified the most unpopular of their measures by inducing the Prince to pass, in their own cabinet, regulations which originated under the seals of the empire. Instead of a revenue, they remitted to him bribes; and the necessity of his situation reduced him into a tool, to the very rebels who had ruined his power.
This mock form of an empire continued for many years; and some provinces are still governed through the medium of a monarch that only subsists in his name. But though the Nabobs affirmed that they had still an Emperor, the people found, in their oppressions, that there was none. The check which the terror of complaints to Delhi had laid formerly on the conduct of the viceroys, was now removed; and the officers of the crown who had been placed between the subject and the governor, were discontinued or deprived of their power. The inferior tenants, instead of being supported by the Imperial collectors of the revenue against the avarice of the general farmers, were submitted, without redress, to the management of the latter, and were considered by him as a kind of property.
The usurpation of Aliverdi introduced, more than thirty years ago, the above-described form of government into Bengal. The same policy was continued by his successors, They owned the Emperor of Delhi for their sovereign, but they governed the country, and collected its revenues for themselves. The interposition of the crown being removed, the independent Nabobs, who succeeded one another either by force or intrigue, adopted a more simple, but a more impolitic mode of collecting the rents and imposts than that which had been practised by the house of Timur. The lands were let from year to year to Zemindars, who were accountable for the rents to the treasury, and the former officers of the revenue, though not annihilated, possessed neither emolument nor power.
An intimate knowledge of the country, however, enabled the Nabobs to prevent their government from degenerating into absolute oppression. They had sense enough to see, that their own power depended upon the prosperity of their subjects; and their residence in the province gave them an opportunity of doing justice with more expedition and precision than it was done in the times of the empire. The complaints of the injured, from a possession of the means of information, were better understood. The Nabobs were less restricted than formerly, in inflicting necessary punishments; and, as they were accountable to no superior for the revenue, they had it in their power to remit unjust debts and taxes, which could not be borne. The miseries of Bengal, in short, were reserved for other times. Commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, were encouraged; for it was not then the maxim to take the honey, by destroying the swarm.
The folly of the Prince had no destructive effect on the prosperity of the people. The Nabobs, carrying down, through their own independent government, the idea of the mild despotism of the house of Timur, seemed to mark out to the people certain lines, which they themselves did not choose either to overleap or destroy. Many now in Britain were eye-witnesses of the truth of this assertion. We appeal to the testimony of those who marched through Bengal after the death of Surage-ul-Dowla, that, at that time, it was one of the richest, most populous, and best-cultivated kingdoms in the world. The great men and merchants were wallowing in wealth and luxury; the inferior tenants and the manufacturers were blessed with plenty, content, and ease. But the cloud which has since obscured this sunshine was near.
When the troubles, which ended by putting Bengal into the hands of the Company, first arose, Surage-ul-Dowla, a very young and inconsiderate Prince, was Nabob of the three provinces. The good fortune which had at first forsaken us, returned to our arms; and, by the assistance, or rather opportune treachery of Jaffier, one of his generals, he was deposed and murdered. We raised the traitor, as a reward for his convenient treason, to a throne still warm with the blood of his lord; and the measure seemed to be justified, by our apparent inability of retaining the conquered province in our own hands.
The fortune of Jaffier, however, did not long withhold her frowns. Though he had treachery enough to ruin his master, he was destitute of abilities to reign in his place. His weakness became an excuse for a revolution, which had been meditated on other grounds; and Cassim Ali, Jaffier's son-in-law, an intriguing politician, was invested with the dignity and power of his father. If Jaffier was weak, Cassim had too good parts to be permitted to govern Bengal. He was deposed, and his predecessor reinstated in his place. This farce in politics was adopted as a precedent. A governor, without a revolution in the state of Bengal, could not answer to himself for idling away his time.
The civil wars, to which a violent desire of creating Nabobs gave rise, were attended with tragical events. The country was depopulated by every species of public distress. In the space of six years, half the great cities of an opulent kingdom were rendered desolate; the most fertile fields in the world lay waste; and five millions of harmless and industrious people were either expelled or destroyed. Want of foresight became more fatal than innate barbarism; and men found themselves wading through blood and ruin, when their object was only spoil. But this is not the time to rend the veil which covers our political transactions in Asia.
State of Bengal Under the East-India Company.
Observations on the Treaty for the Dewanny.
An ample field lay open before us; but we have appropriated revolution and war to history. The present disquisition is of an inferior kind; an inquiry, which means not to irritate but to reform. Let it suffice to say, that Bengal suffered from disturbances and violent measures; and that fortune, though unfavourable, was less fatal, than the rapacity of avaricious men. Peculiarly unhappy, an unwarlike but industrious people, were subdued by a society whose business was commerce. A barbarous enemy may slay a prostrate foe; but a civilized conqueror can only ruin nations without the sword. Monopolies and an exclusive trade joined issue with additional taxations; the unfortunate were deprived of the means, whilst the demands upon them were, with peculiar absurdity, increased.
But to wander no farther into declamation: though the misfortunes of Bengal began with the revolutions and changes which succeeded the death of Surage-ul-Dowla, the system, which advances still with hasty strides, to the complete ruin of that once opulent province, was established several years after that event. A noble governor sent to command in Bengal, by the East India Company, arrived in that kingdom in the May of 1765. The expulsion of the Nabob Cassim Ali, and the reduction of Suja-ul-Dowla, by our arms, had enabled the servants of the Company to establish peace upon their own terms. The treaty which they concluded was absurd; and had it been less exceptionable, it would not probably have pleased a man who went not to India to be idle.
The various revolutions of fortune, which had subjected several of the richest provinces of India to the Company's servants, threw the undoubted heir of the Mogul empire into their hands. The governor availed himself of this circumstance. Other Nabobs had converted the unfortunate prince into a tool; and it was now the turn of our governor to do the same, for the benefit of his constituents. Conscious of his power over the Emperor, and having the absolute direction of a Nabob, who owed his elevation to the governor, himself, and to his own crimes, he threw aside the former treaty. A perpetual commission for the office of Dewan, or receiver-general of the revenues of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, was obtained, from SHAW ALLUM, for the Company. The office of perpetual Nabob might have been as easily obtained; but the former balanced a thousand disadvantages, by rendering the nature of the tenure perplexed.
In consideration of the Imperial mandate, which, with the revenues, conferred the government of Bengal for ever on the Company, Shaw Allum was to receive an annual pension of three hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. The annuity was moderate to the lineal successor of Timur. He was, at the same time, guaranteed in the possession of the province of Allahabad; and thus a kind of provision was made for a Prince, who retained nothing of what belonged to his illustrious ancestors, except the empty title of Emperor of Hindostan. This treaty, however, though it dazzled with its splendour, was neither solid nor advantageous in itself. The Emperor, instead of being placed at Allahabåd, ought to possess the province, out of which his pretended vizier, Suja-ul-Dowla, had been recently driven; or should that measure be supposed to invest him with dangerous power, the territories of Bulwant Singh, equal in revenue to Allahabad, might have been conferred upon him. The Company, being then in possession of all these provinces, might, by its servants, have adopted either of these systems.
To the first measure there are no well-founded objections, and many advantages might be derived from it. The sum of three hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds might have been annually saved, which sum is now sent to a distant province, from whence it never returns. This latter circumstance is of more real prejudice to Bengal and the affairs of the Company, than if half the revenues of the province had been given to the Emperor, upon condition of his keeping his court in that country. Had Shaw Allum been put in possession of the dominions of Suja-ul-Dowla, the natural inactivity of his disposition, and the extraordinary expence and magnificence which he is, in some measure, obliged to support, would have prevented him from being so dangerous a neighbour as even Suja-ul-Dowla. The whole empire was in a state of rebellion; and we were only from convenience his friends.
Arguments crowd in to support this position; but there are still stronger reasons for placing the Emperor in the territories of Bulwant Singh. His residence, in such a case, might have been fixed at Patna or Mongeer; and our army, instead of being cantoned at Allahabad and Cora, two hundred miles from the frontier of our provinces, might have remained in Patna, in the centre of our dominions. Bengal, had this measure been adopted, instead of losing the pension paid to the Emperor, and the enormous expence of a brigade in a foreign country, would have been enriched by the greater part of the revenues of the territories of Bulwant Singh; for which he had paid twenty-two lacks of roupees to Suja-ul-Dowla, though in reality he collected double that sum upon the subject.
The latter position will appear more obvious from the following state. Bengal, had the measure been adopted, would annually have saved,
The pension paid to the Emperor ..... £.325,000
The expence of a brigade ....... 187,500
Twenty lacks from the territories of Bulwant Singh spent at Patna ........ 250,000
Total: 762,500
This measure alone, we may venture to affirm, would have preserved Bengal in a flourishing condition, in spite of avarice and mismanagement. It would, at the same time, have been attended with many salutary effects in our political system in India. The Emperor would have been more immediately under our eye; for though he at present labours under an eclipse, he may, some time or other, shine forth like a comet, in the hands of an ambitious and able man. We are now obliged to protect and support him, under manifest disadvantages. His territories border on the Mahrattors, Jates, and Rohillas; and he is under a perpetual apprehension from these nations. Had the measure, the advantages of which we have described, been taken, Suja-ul-Dowla would have come in between him and these powers; but, at present, our army at Allahabad becomes a security to that prince; whose apprehensions would otherwise have induced him to adhere more firmly than he now, shews an inclination, to his treaty with the Company.
State of Commerce in Bengal, under the Company.
The prosperity and opulence which Bengal enjoyed during the government of the house of Timur, and even under the revolted viceroys, proceeded from her lucrative commerce, as much as from the fertility of her soil. Rich in the industry of her inhabitants, she became independent of the partial rapine of impolitic governors, who plundered only to squander away. The money, which entered by injustice at one door of the treasury, was carried out at another by luxury. The court of the Nabob was the heart, which only received the various currents of wealth, to throw it with vigour through every vein of the kingdom.
We may date the commencement of decline, from the day on which Bengal fell under the dominion of foreigners; who were more anxious to improve the present moment to their own emolument, than, by providing against waste, to secure a permanent advantage to the British nation. With a peculiar want of foresight, they began to drain the reservoir, without turning into it any stream to prevent it from being exhausted. From observation, we descend to facts.
The annual investments of the Company, for which no specie is received, amounts, at an average of ten years, to ........ £.927,500
Those of the Dutch, for which the servants of the Company take bills on Europe, for remitting fortunes acquired in Bengal ... 200,000
Those of the French, paid for to the natives, in the same way .........350,000
Those of the Portuguese and Danes . . . . 100,000
Total: £.1,577,500
Bengal, it shall hereafter appear, to replace all this waste, scarce annually receives in bullion ............. 100,000
She loses therefore, yearly, to Europe . . £.1,477,500
The above estimate of the exports of Bengal, for which she receives no specie, is formed on the prime cost of her manufactures. The balance against her comprehends the savings of the Company on the revenue, the value of British exports, the private fortunes of individuals, which centre in this kingdom. This ruinous commerce with Europe is not balanced, by a lucrative intercourse with the various states of Asia. The increase of the demand for the manufactures of Bengal for our markets here, and the revolutions which shook and greatly depopulated that kingdom, have raised the price of goods. The demand would, upon this head, sink in proportion in the East; but besides, the internal state of the various countries, which formerly exchanged bullion for the goods of Bengal, has been long unfavourable to foreign commerce.
Persia, about thirty years ago a great and a flourishing empire, has been torn to pieces, and almost depopulated by the cruelties of Nadir Shaw; and, since his assassination, by unremitting civil wars. The few inhabitants who escaped the rage of the sword, sit down in the midst of poverty. Georgia and Armenia, who shared in the troubles of Persia, share also her untoward fate. Indigence has shut up the doors of commerce; vanity has disappeared with wealth, and men content themselves with the coarse manufactures of their native countries. The Turkish empire has long declined on its southern and eastern frontiers. Egypt rebelled: Babylonia, under its Basha, revolted. The distracted state of the former has almost shut up the trade, by caravans, from Suez to Cairo; from the latter of which, the manufactures of Bengal were conveyed by sea to all the ports of the Ottoman dominions.
The rapacity of the Basha of Bagdat, which is increased by the necessity of keeping a great standing force to support his usurpation, has environed with terror the walls of Bussora, which circumstance has almost annihilated its commerce with Syria. Scarce a caravan passes from the gulf of Persia to Aleppo once in two years; and when it does, it is but poor and small, Formerly, in every season, several rich and numerous caravans crossed the desert to Syria; but the few that venture at present, being too weak to protect themselves against the wandering Arabs, are stopt by every tribe, and are obliged to purchase safety with exorbitant duties. Trade is in a manner unknown; the merchants of Bussora are ruined; and there were, last year, in the warehouses of that city, of the manufactures of Bengal, to the value of two hundred thousand pounds, which could not be sold for half the prime cost.
The number of independent kingdoms which have started up from the ruins of the Mogul empire, has almost destroyed the inland commerce of Bengal with the upper parts of Hindostan. Every Prince levies heavy duties upon all goods that pass through his dominions. The merchants, who formerly came down toward the mouths of the Ganges to purchase commodities, have discontinued a trade, not only ruined by imposts, but even unsafe from banditti. The province of Oud and Assâm are the only inland countries with which Bengal drives, at present, any trade. The former has greatly the balance in its favour against us of late years, from the money expended by seven thousand of our own troops, which till of late have been stationed in the neighbourhood of the dominions of Suja-ul-Dowla, in consequence of an impolitic treaty, and to answer private views. The commerce of salt, beetle-nut, and tobacco, with Assâm, is almost balanced by the quantity of silk, Mugadutties, and lack, which we receive from that kingdom in return.
The trade of Bengal, with the kingdoms and islands of the eastern Asia, still continues in some degree; but it has been long on the decline. The coasting trade with the maritime provinces of Hindostan has, upon various accounts, decayed. We may venture to affirm, upon the whole, that the balance in favour of Bengal, from all its Asiatic commerce, exceeds not annually one hundred thousand pounds. The council of Calcutta have calculated it at less than half that sum. They estimated, in the year 1768, the importation of bullion into Bengal, for the space of four years, at fifteen lacks of roupees; which amounts annually to forty-six thousand pounds of our money. But the cause of this decay lies more in negligence than in the present state of the maritime regions and islands beyond the eastern mouth of the Ganges.
To draw a conclusion from the observations made: though Bengal, by her industry, yields to Europe, of manufactures, to the annual amount of one million five hundred and seventy-seven thousand pounds, for which she receives nothing; yet, if the balance of her trade with Asia amounts to one hundred thousand pounds, she may still continue to flourish under a proper system of internal regulation. The paradox is hitherto supportable by argument and proof; but there still remain heavy articles to be brought into the account against Bengal. Some of the articles, from their complicated nature, must be stated from opinion: others rest on incontrovertible facts. The estimate of the first shall be made as low as possible: the latter are established beyond the power of cavil itself.
The specie carried from Bengal, by the expelled Nabob, Cassim Ali, is supposed to amount to .....£.1,250,000
Specie carried away by men of property, who have deserted the kingdom since the power of the Company prevailed ....... 2,500,000
The expences of the war, for one whole year, in the dominions of Suja-ul-Dowla, at five lacks per month; which, after deducting fifty lacks, paid by treaty by that prince, amounts to · · · · · · · · · · 125,000
Carry over 3,875,000
Brought over £.3,875,000
Specie sent from Bengal to pay a brigade, consisting of seven thousand men, stationed for five years, after the peace, at Allahabad, at the annual expence of fifteen lacks ... 937,500
Specie sent from that kingdom to China and Madras, including the expences of troops on the coast, detached from the establishment of Bengal ............. 1,500,000
Specie brought to England ....... 100,000
Exported of specie . .... 6,412,500
Deduct the imports of bullion for twelve years, at the annual sum of one hundred thousand pounds . ........... 1,200,000
Decrease in the specie of Bengal since the accession of the Company to the dominion of that kingdom ........... 5,212,500
This ruinous state of the commerce of Bengal is by no means exaggerated. To deprive every adversary of argument, the calculations are, by the Author of the Inquiry, purposely rendered extremely low. A comparative view of the former situation of that once opulent kingdom with its present condition, will throw additional light on the subject. In the days of the empire, the balance of trade for which Bengal received bullion, has been estimated at £.1,687,500
Deduct the annual revenue sent in specie to Delhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,250,000
Yearly acquisition in money ...... 437,500
The kingdom of Bengal, it appears, has not, in the midst of her misfortunes, fallen off greatly from her former exports of manufactures. She still sends to Europe, within one hundred and ten pounds a year of the quantity, for which she received the above balance of bullion, in the days of her prosperity. This, had not her specie been exported, would not have impoverished her. But let us suppose that her whole currency amounted to fifteen millions; the entire loss of a third part of that sum must have inevitably distressed her; and an annual decrease of near half a million must, if not prevented, in a few years, totally ruin the little commerce that still remains. The prospect is gloomy. The taxes must be lessened, and the ruin, which we have brought on an unfortunate country, will recoil upon ourselves.
To illustrate the argument by comparison. Were the paper-currency of Great Britain totally suppressed, and her gold and silver currency, which is estimated at seven mil- lions, left for the purposes of trade and taxation, it is evident that ruinous consequences must ensue; but none will pretend to affirm, that the nation, by such a measure, would become one farthing poorer than before. Trade, however, from the want of a sufficient quantity of the signs of wealth and property, would be cramped in all its veins. The interest of money, in spite of laws, would rise to an enormous pitch. The same want of currency would, at the same time, become such a check upon luxury, that the price of labour, and especially of provisions, would fall, unless the latter were kept up by rigorously enforcing the present taxes without abatement. The price of provisions, in that case, would rise every day, and the poor would daily become less able to purchase. The people would, in a very few years, be stript of all their property, and national beggary would be followed by national ruin.
Bengal, from the decrease of her specie, feels, in fact, the miseries which we have in speculation just described. Were not her taxes enforced by oppression, provisions would fall in proportion to the decrease of wealth; supposing the number of inhabitants and state of cultivation to continue the same. But the reverse happens, from our endeavouring to keep up the revenues to their former pitch. The farmer cannot sell his grain without a price, which bears a proportion to the rents which he is obliged to pay, whilst his cultivation decreases for want of a sufficient stock. The consumer, at the same time, must have food. If he is a manufacturer or labourer, he must raise his goods or his wages to answer the price of bread. The evils of a forced state of society increase. Famine, with all its horrors, ensues; and, by sweeping away some millions of wretched people, gives, to the unhappy survivors, the respite of a few years.
Observations on Monopolies.
The monopolies established by the servants of the Company in Bengal, furnish an ample field for animadversion. But other writers have already occupied that province. The brevity which the Author of the Inquiry has prescribed to his work, induces him to pass lightly over ground that has been trodden before. It is superfluous to insist upon the prejudice which monopoly has done to the natural rights of the natives, and to the privileges which they possessed, by prescription, from despotism itself. This part of the subject has been handled with ability by others: we shall slightly touch upon what has escaped their observation.
Salt, in almost every country, is one of the necessaries of life. In Bengal, which still contains near fifteen millions of people, the consumption of this article must be very great; for, besides what they themselves consume, they mix great quantities with the food of their cattle. Salt is produced by filtrating the earth near the mouths of the Ganges, and by then boiling the water which is impregnated with saline particles. The process is simple and cheap, where wood for fuel costs nothing. The low price at which salt could be conveyed through all the branches of the Ganges, rendered it an advantageous article of trade with the inland ports of Hindostan. Great quantities were sent to Benaris and Mirzapour, from the markets of which, the provinces of Oud and Allahabad, the territories of the Raja of Bundela, and of all the petty princes of the kingdom of Malava, were supplied. This trade, by a society of monopolists in Calcutta, was seized in the year 1765. Avarice got the better of prudence, and a rage for present gain cut off all future prospects. The article of salt was raised two hundred per cent.; and the foreign purchasers, finding that they could be supplied at a much cheaper rate with rock-salt from the dominions of the Rohillas near Delhi, this valuable commerce at once was lost.
Beetle-nut and tobacco have, by the strength of habit, become almost necessaries of life in Hindostan. The first is produced in many parts of the Decan; and the latter is cultivated over all the empire. There was, however, a considerable exportation from Bengal in these articles; and it, unfortunately for that country, attracted the notice of the monopolists. But, as if monopolies were not sufficient to destroy the inland commerce of Bengal with the rest of Hindostan, an edict was issued, in the year 1768, prohibiting all the servants of the Company, the free merchants, Armenians, Portuguese, and all foreigners whatsoever, from carrying goods beyond the limits of our province, under the pain of confiscation, and the severest punishments inflicted on their agents.
The court of directors, it is but justice to declare, have invariably opposed the above-recited destructive monopolies. But the commands of fugitive and transient masters are weak in opposition to interest. The fluctuations in Leadenhall-street, deprived the mandates which issued from it of all their authority; and the presidency abroad frequently received orders from their constituents at home, with the same inattention that the Nizâm of Golconda would pay to the Firman of the unfortunate Shaw Allum. 'The directors, in short, are only to blame in an acquiescence to a disobedience to the orders of their predecessors in office. Carrying frequently the animosity of prior contention into their measures, they forgot the attention due to their own power, in the pleasure of seeing a slur thrown on that of their opponents. They are also blameable for the suspicious veil of secrecy with which they affect to cover their affairs. The door of information is, in some measure, shut up; the inferior servants are precluded, by an ill-founded fear, from laying open to them the state of government abroad, and it was perhaps the interest of their superior servants to conceal a part of the truth. Substantial darkness has by these means settled on objects which it is even the interest of the Company, as well as of the nation, should be known to the world.
Mode of collecting the Revenues.
The Princes, whom we raised in Bengal, vanished imperceptibly from their thrones. Light and unsubstantial as the shew of power with which, as in derision, we invested them, they disappeared, like Romulus, but without a storm. The benefits derived from former revolutions, created a love of change; and the angel of death, if not our friend, was opportune in his frequent visits to the Musnud. In the course of five years, three Nabobs expired; and the unfledged sovereign, who acceded to the nominal government of Bengal on the March of 1770, has enjoyed already, considering the times, a long reign. Nabobs, to own the truth, are useless; and they are dismissed to their fathers, without either ceremony or noise.
In the year 1765, upon the demise of Jaffier, whom we had, for the first time, raised in 1757 to the government for his convenient treachery to his master, Nijim-ul-Dowla, his son by a common prostitute, was, in the eighteenth year. of his age, placed upon the throne, in the capital of Murshedabâd. Soon after the accession of this prince, a noble governor, on the part of the Company, arrived at Calcutta, and executed the treaty which has furnished materials for a preceding section. Mahommed Riza, a man of less integrity than abilities, was made prime minister; activity being a virtue more necessary to the intention of his creation than honesty. The wretched Nijim-ul-Dowla was a mere name; a figure of state more despicable, if possible, than the meanness of his family and parts. The whole executive government turned upon Mahommed Riza. A resident was sent from Calcutta to check the accounts of the nominal government; as if one man, who knew very little of the language, manners, and opinions of the people, could prevent the frauds of an artful minister, and ten thousand of his dependents, versed in the management of finance. The consequence might be foreseen with little penetration. Unable and perhaps unwilling to oppose the current, the resident fell down with the stream, and became so far a check upon Mahommed, that he appropriated to himself a part of what the minister might otherwise have thrown into his own treasure.
Mahommed Riza, as a small salary of office, received annually one hundred and twelve thousand five hundred pounds, with three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds a year to be distributed in pensions among his friends. The minister, with his other good qualities, had no local attachment to friends. They were of various complexions and religions; fair-faced Europeans, as well as swarthy Indians; and, though professing Mahommedanism himself, he was so far from being an enemy to the uncircumcised, that it is said the most of his pensions and gratuities were bestowed on good Christians born in Great Britain and Ireland. Mahommed, however, did not take up his whole time with acts of benevolence to our nation. He applied himself to business; and he was more rigid in executing the government which the revolted Nabobs had established in Bengal, than fond of introducing innovations more favourable to the prosperity of the country.
The Nabobs of Bengal, it has been already observed, began the ruinous policy of farming out the lands annually; leaving the wretched tenants to the oppression and tyranny of temporary Zemindars. At the commencement of every year, there is a general congress of all the great farmers, at the capital of Bengal; which meeting is, in the language of the country, called Punea. The object of the congress is to settle the accounts of the former year, and to give the lands for another, to the highest bidder. The competition between the farmers is favourable to the private interest of Mahommed Riza and his friend the resident; but it is destructive to the poor, and consequently to the Company's affairs.
The charge of travelling from the more distant divisions of the province, and the expence of living in the capital, are but a very inconsiderable part of the loss of the farmers in this visit to court. Pretences are never wanting to intimidate them, on account of their past conduct; and where no competitors offer of themselves, some are created by the minister, to raise anxiety and terror. Presents are an infallible remedy for quashing all inquiries into former oppressions; and a bribe secures to them the power of exercising, for another year, their tyrannies over the unhappy tenants. It would be endless to trace the intrigues of the farmers upon this occasion: it would be difficult to expose all the artful villainy of the minister. The Zemindars, however wealthy they may be, feign such poverty, as not to be able to make up the balances of the preceding year. They have even been known to carry the farce so far, as to suffer a severe whipping before they would produce their money.
The avarice of Mahommed Riza is the cause of this un. manly behaviour in the wretched farmers. When they seem rich, the impost is raised; and the bribe must in proportion be greater. Their love of money is often more powerful than the fear of bodily pain. When they have long groaned under the lash, some banker or money-broker appears, who, for the exorbitant interest of ten per cent. per month, discharges the debt. The farmer, by such means as these, often deceives the vigilance of the minister and resident, and obtains his lands for another year, because no one else will offer a sum which the possessor finds so much difficulty to pay. A friend, in the secret, gives security for the rents; and a present, thrown into the hands of the minister, suspends, for a time, the discipline of the whip.
In the year 1767, the Author of the Inquiry, who resided, at the time, in Bengal, had the curiosity to calculate the expence of the Bundubust, or yearly settlement. He formed his estimate from the accounts of various Zemindars, and he avers, without exaggeration, that the expences amounted to twenty-seven and one-half per cent. of the rents of their lands; which may amount to a million sterling. These trivial perquisites were shared between Mahommed Riza, his friends, and the bankers of Murshedabad. The place of the Company's resident at the Durbâr, or the court of the Nabob, was HONESTLY worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year.
These embezzlements and fraudulent practices were not, however, so detrimental to the Company's affairs, from the actual decrease in the revenues, as from the general depravity of manners, and the oppressions which they introduced. When the sources of government are corrupted, they poison the whole stream. Every petty officer in the state, every clerk of the revenues, assumed the tyrant in his own department. Justice was totally suspended; and the fear of being plundered by a superior, was the only check that remained against the commission of the most atrocious crimes. Every instance of abstaining from the most cruel oppressions, proceeded from indolence: every act of tyranny from the love of money. The distemper of avarice, in the extreme, seemed to infect all whom the wrath of God against a devoted people had placed in power.
The consequences of this mode of letting the lands of Bengal, were such as might, with little foresight, have been expected; had not stronger impressions than those of reason been necessary to convince men of a profitable error. Nothing in the conquered provinces was premeditated but rapine. Every thing, but plunder, was left to chance and necessity, who impose their own laws. The farmers, having no certainty of holding the lands beyond the year, made no improvements. Their profit must be immediate, to satisfy the hand of avarice, which was suspended over their heads. Impressed with the uncertainty of their situation, they raised the rents, to the last farthing, on the wretched tenants; who, unwilling to forsake their ancient habitations and house. hold gods, submitted to impositions which they could not pay. They looked up to Heaven in their distress; but no redress remained for the wretched.
Year after year brought new tyrants, or confirmed the old in the practice of their former oppressions. The tenants being at length ruined, the farmers were unable to make good their contracts with government. Their cruelty to their inferiors recoiled, at length, on themselves. Many of them were bound to stakes and whipped; but their poverty ceased to be feigned. Their complaints were heard in every square of Murshedabad; and not a few of them expired in agonies under the lash. Many of the inferior tenants, reduced to despair, fled the country, hoping to derive from other despotisms, that lenity which our indolence, to speak the best of ourselves, denied. Those that remained were deprived of the small stock necessary for cultivation; and a great part of the lands lay waste. Every governor thought it incumbent upon him to keep up the revenues to their former pitch; but, in spite of the permitted cruelty of Mahommed Riza, they continued every year to decrease. It could not have happened otherwise; unless Heaven had wrought miracles as a reward for our VIRTUES.
In proportion as an unfortunate people became less able to bear the established taxation, the modes of collecting it became more oppressive. Seven entire battalions were added to our military establishment to enforce the collections. They carried terror and ruin through the country; but poverty was more prevalent than obstinacy every where. This new force became an enormous expence to the Company; and the unnatural pressure on the people raised the price of provisions. The manufacturers, to be able to purchase bread, shewed an inclination to raise the price of their goods. It was soon perceived that, should this be permitted, the manufactures of Bengal would not answer in Europe, so as even to indemnify the Company for prime cost, for duties, and other expences, exclusive of the profit which a commercial body had a right to expect. The prices must be kept down; but this could not be done without violence. Provisions became daily dearer; and the demand for goods increased.
The officers, chiefly employed in the management of the revenues, being needy adventurers from Persia and the upper India, carried avarice, as well as the arbitrary ideas of their own distracted governments, into their departments. Solicitous to obtain an immediate advantage to themselves,, they forgot the interest of their employers; and practised every species of rapine and violence on the timid inhabitants of Bengal. The wealth which, in the space of a few years, they accumulated, enabled them to return into their native countries; and thus they furnished another cause of the decline of specie in the kingdom. These foreign collectors maintained a numerous train of needy dependants, who, under the protection of their tyrannical masters, assumed the privilege of rapine and peculation. Venality ceased to be a crime; and dexterity in the art of imposition, was deemed a recommendation to the first offices of trust.
Mahommed Riza made it his invariable policy to keep the servants of the Company in ignorance of the true state of affairs; and when any deception was practised, another was formed to conceal it from view. He entered into a collusion with many of the farmers. Occasional accounts were framed; and the usual accounts were studiously involved in inextricable confusion. Men averse to trouble throw them aside, and neglect their duty in their indolence. The servants of Mahommed Riza not only escape censure, but retain their places; and thus iniquity furnishes to itself a new field for a repetition of its execrable talents.
To investigate the various demands and extortions of the Aumins, or the protectors of the people, who, instead of defending, pillage their charge, would be endless. These, by a collusion with the Zemindars, prey with them on the unfortunate tenants. The Gomàstas, or agents, Dellols, Pikes, Pikars, Burkândaz, and other vermin, employed in the collection and investment, establish a thousand modes of oppression and extortion. An ignorant and unhappy people see these officers of government through the medium of fear; and comply, in melancholy silence, with their exorbitant demands. No collector, not even his principal servant, travels over any part of his district, without imposing upon the village in which he chooses to rest, a tax of rice, fowl, kid, fruits, and every other luxury of the table, for himself and his dependants. He also levies fines, at pleasure, for frivolous offences, and under various and often false pretexts. The crime consists in the ability of the person to pay the fine; and nothing but excess of misery and poverty is safe from the griping hand of avarice.
The Zemindars, or principal farmers, copy the officers of government in tyranny. The Riôts, or wretched tenants, are forced to give their labour gratuitously to this transitory lord of a year, whenever he chooses to employ their toil in his fields, when their own farms lie waste for want of cultivation. There is not one article of consumption with which the poor tenants are not obliged to supply the general farmer, The quantity brought is frequently more than his consumpt demands; and, in these cases, they are forced, under the inspection of his servants, to carry their own property to market, and to dispose of it for the use of their lord. They even frequently raise or fall the exchange upon the roupees, against the wretched husbandmen: and, without even the strength of custom, they exact from the lower sort, fees upon births, marriages, and contracts. There is scarce an occurrence upon which they have not invented arbitrary imposts.
The Company, having never examined into the real tenures by which many possess their lands, left an ample field for sequestration, fraud, and encroachment. The Talookdârs, or the favourites and dependants of former Nabobs, hold, by grants from their patrons, extensive tracts of land. Some of these grants convey a kind of freehold; others, estates at a very low rent, possessing, besides, particular exemptions and extraordinary immunities. These alienations were never valid, in the days of the empire, without being renewed by every viceroy; and no good reason remains why they should now exist, as the illegal means of oppression, in the hands of petty tyrants. They have even added encroachment upon the adjacent lands to the injustice by which they possess their own; and they have presumed to lay tolls on ferries, and imposts upon markets, even beyond the limits of their imperfect grants. This encroachment on the rights of the Company is, however, a kind of benefit to the people. The possessor of the grant considers the lands which it describes, as his own property; and he is, from a natural selfishness, more a friend to his inferiors than the fugitive Zemindar of a year.
To render clear affairs hitherto little understood, we must descend into more particulars. The frauds and oppressions committed in Bengal in the collection of the revenue, are as various as they are without number. The interior policy subsisting in that kingdom, will throw new light on the subject. Some of the lands in Bengal go under the designation of Comâr, having no native tenants, being cultivated by vagrant husbandmen, who wander from place to place in quest of labour. A farmer takes frequently large tracts of these lands upon contract. He obliges himself to be answerable to government for the produce; but he keeps the accounts himself. The vagrant husbandmen whom he employs, having neither implements of agriculture nor stock, are, from time to time, supplied with small sums by the farmer, and when the harvest is gathered in, he appropriates to himself two-thirds of the crop; after paying himself from the remainder, for the interest of the sums advanced to the vagrants. The accounts delivered in to government contain every thing but the truth; and this mode, from our indolence, becoming most profitable to the Zemindar, he wishes to depopulate the country, in some measure, for his own gain.
The lands which are under the immediate management of government, are, in the language of the country, called Coss. They differ from the Comâr in various particulars. Stewards are appointed to superintend them, without the power of making new contracts with the tenants, or of raising upon them the rents, being accountable only for the rents of the lands as they stand upon the rolls of the district. These rolls, however, are in general false and defective. Some lands, to serve particular friends, are greatly under-rated; and others are entirely concealed by the address of the stewards. To grant certain immunities to the stewards themselves, was formerly much in practice. They were permitted to possess for their subsistence, gardens, pastures, ponds for fish, and fields for rice. These privileges have been greatly enlarged since Bengal fell under the Company; and the stewards have fixed no decent bounds to their encroachments.
The lands distinguished by the name of Riotty, are possessed and cultivated by the native inhabitants under Zemindars, or farmers, who contract for them with government for an annual sum. The rents are partly levied on a measurement, and partly on the various productions which are sent to market, and converted into money by the farmer, The ruinous effects of this mode of collecting the revenue have been already explained. There are, besides, great , quantities of waste lands, which are of two kinds; lands struck off the public books at a former period, which are now cultivated but not brought to account; and such as are really waste, which comprehend at least one fourth part of Bengal. Of the former there are many large fertile tracts, well cultivated, which have been appropriated by Zemindars and their dependants; and they find means, in their accounts with an indolent government, to avoid all scrutiny into their usurpations.
To add to the mismanagement, lands are set apart for almost every officer under the government; a mode of salary which makes no appearance upon the annual accounts, but which, notwithstanding, amounts to more than all the apparent charges of collection. Great hurt arises to the revenues from this practice, and the abuse subsists without reformation. The lands of all the officers ought instantly to be resumed, and their salaries to be paid out of the exchequer. Many of the collectors have also imposed partial duties upon the subject; and thus have added oppression and injustice to the people, to their usurpations upon government.
Justice is suffered to be greatly perverted by the officers above specified, and others, who, from their inherent art or abilities, substitute their own decisions where government have established no legal judges. The custom of imposing mulcts and fines in all cases, is an intolerable grievance to a wretched people. The rich suffer, by having money to give; the poor, by being deprived of restitution, because they have none. Every Mahommedan who can mutter over the Coran, raises himself to a judge, without either licence or appointment; and every Brahmin, at the head of a tribe, distributes justice according to his own fancy without control. The latter threatens the ignorant with the dreadful punishment of excommunication; and thus his own moderation becomes the measure of the sums which he receives · from an unfortunate race of men.
Such, in the year 1767, was the true state of Bengal: but, it is to be hoped, that the regulations of 1770 have reformed many abuses. A plan was in that year digested, and begun to be carried into execution, by men who could not be strangers to any one of the above particulars; though, from their strict adherence to the regulations of a noble governor, to which they were tied down by express orders from the Court of Directors, the abuses were permitted to exist till the country was beggared and depopulated. The effect which the plan may have, cannot yet be estimated with precision. Were we, however, to judge from the improvements in Burdwân, which has been under the management of a very able servant for some years past, and has greatly increased in revenue and population, the new regulations will be attended with very considerable advantages to the Company. But even Burdwan owed part of its prosperity to the misery and distress of the surrounding districts. The plan adopted will be far from effectuating the reformation and increase of the revenue which are now required; for the balance of the revenue could, in the year 1770, hardly discharge the four hundred thousand pounds paid annually to government. If our information is just, what mighty advantages have the Company derived from their great acquisitions in Bengal?
