of Council, and three senior servants; under them a secretary, a Persian translator, an accountant and five assistants.

The Councils of Revenue to be formed for superintending the second, third, fourth and fifth Grand Divisions to be composed of a Chief and four senior servants; under them a secretary, a Persian translator, an accountant, and three assistants. The sixth Grand Division, Patna, to be superintended by the Chief and Council at Patna. As the detail was to be conducted by the Committee at Calcutta and superseded the necessity of a superintendent of the Khalsa, that office to be abolished when the Provincial Councils have been all re-established. The Registry of the Khalsa is however still to remain as are the offices of Auditor and Accomptant-General. A Dewan is to be appointed to each of the Provincial Councils who shall be chosen by the Board. Rules are laid down for the collection of Revenue.

The Naibs of the Districts under each Provincial Council to hold Courts of Dewannee Adawlut, according to the present Regulations, and transmit their proceedings to the Provincial Councils; but appeals in all cases to be allowed from them to the Provincial Sudder Adawlut of the Division, without the five per cent. fee-these Courts of Provincial Sudder Adawlut, to be superintended in rotation by the members who are out of the Council of Fort William ; to decide ultimately on all cases not exceeding 1,000 Rupees. . . In cases exceeding that sum, an appeal to be as at present, to the Sudder Dewanee Adawlut. In all cases the Provincial Councils at large may revise the decisions of the superintending member. Complaints against the head farmers, Naibs of the districts, zemindars, and other principal officers of the Government, relative to their conduct in the revenue, to be decided by the Provincial Councils, and entered on their proceedings. If any of them think themselves aggrieved, they may apply ultimately to the superior Council of Revenue at Calcutta.

The officers of the Phoujdarry Adawluts shall be forbidden to hold farms or other offices in the Mofussil; they shall be obliged to reside, on pain of forfeiting their employments; and it shall be declared criminal in any person to officiate in the Courts of Adawlut, in the capacity of Naibs or Gomastahs for Principals non-resident.

Complaints against the officers of the Phoujdarry Adawluts to be made to the Governor, and to be referred by him to the Sudder Nizamut, for their enquiry and determination. Members of the Superior Council whether in Calcutta or in the Divisions forbidden to trade. And all covenanted servants are forbidden to make advances to natives for grain and other articles of subsistence. The Collectors were formally called in for the time.

Thus we have new bodies: the Committee of Revenue (which was different from the Board of Revenue of 1772 and from the later Committee of Revenue of 1781) and the Provincial Councils which were abolished in 1781. The idea as to the Calcutta Committee was that ultimately it

should have a wider sphere and, carrying out the plans of 1773, absorb the duties of the Provincial Councils. The courts, as will be seen, continued though in a transitional and makeshift condition. In 1774 the authorities in India were busy compiling a code of Mohammedan and Hindu Law for the Courts, and Warren Hastings sent home a sample on March 24, 1774; he speaks of an intention on the part of the directors to establish new courts, but expresses the hope that such would not be done before those on the spot had been consulted. These new institutions were now to appear.

CHAPTER IV

THE REGULATING ACT

PARLIAMENT from 1698 onwards had taken an increasingly active interest in the affairs of India and a statute of II & 12 Will. III. (c. 12) authorized the punishment of governors of plantations in England for offences committed by them during the period of their office. It was natural therefore that the events of 1765 attracted deep interest. The Company though paying large dividends on its stock, was really in a very embarrassed condition, and this helped to enlarge the scope of parliamentary interference in the years that followed. A feeling, too, prevailed that all was not right, that there was probably oppression and probably wrongdoing, and that even where the intentions of the officials might be above suspicion, they were not administering the country in the best possible manner. Many thought, too, that a great power was being built up over which the Home Government had little or no control. To the credit of the Company it must be said that they showed the strongest wish to improve matters; often by their hasty endeavours to redress grievances they made things worse, but there was no lack of good-will. The Acts which we now come to show that the main idea that an Englishman had of dealing with the administration of India consisted too often, then as now, in making it more like that of his own country. This fundamental notion, together with a certain vagueness partly calculated and partly the result of ignorance, will go far to explain the honest but rather unsatisfactory attempts which were made to deal with so great a problem.

In 1766 a committee was appointed to inquire into the condition of the East India Company, and the report of that committee was followed by various Acts of Parliament. 7 Geo. III. c. 48 stated that members of companies or corporations for carrying on trade were after August 1, 1767, disqualified from voting until they had held stock for at least six months, save in cases where the stock had come by bequest or succession. It also said that dividends could only be declared at quarterly or half-yearly courts. These provisions were, as Sir Courtenay Ilbert surmises, clearly directed against the East India Company, although it was not mentioned by name.

7 Geo. III. c. 49 was more explicit. It laid down with regard to the East India Company that no dividend was to be made for any time subsequent to June 24, 1767, but in pursuance of a vote or resolution passed by way of balloting in a General Court of the Company which should have been summoned for the purpose of declaring a dividend, and of the meeting of which General Court for such purposes seven days' notice should have been given in writing fixed upon the Royal Exchange in London. It also enacted that it should not be lawful for any General Court of the Company at any time between May 8, 1767 and the beginning of the next session of Parliament to declare and resolve upon any increase of dividend beyond the rate of £10 per cent. per annum, being the rate at which the dividend for the halfyear ending June 24, 1767 was made payable.

7 Geo. III. c. 57 was very important. It recited that the Company had proposed that a temporary agreement should be made in relation to the territorial acquisitions and revenues lately obtained in the East Indies, and that the East India Company was to pay £400,000 per annum for two years from February 1, 1767. In return the territorial acquisitions and revenues were to remain in the possession of the Company. This was it is said the first time that the British Parliament recognized the new possessions of the Company,

8 George III. c. II prolonged the regulation as to the 10 per cent. dividend until February 1, 1769.

The provisional agreement with the Company had to be either continued or ended, and by 9 Geo. III. c. 24 the payment of £400,000 a year to the exchequer was extended for five years from February 1, 1769, the territorial acquisitions remaining in the Company's power for a like period. The Company were not to increase their dividend by more than I per cent. in any one year, and it had not to exceed 12 per cent. per annum in any case. Provision was made that if the dividends were reduced the payments by the Company would be reduced, and the balance after, practically, the discharge of their obligations had to be lent to the British Government at 2 per cent. per annum.

A session later a statute 10 Geo. III. c. 47 indicated that attention was being devoted to the details of the Company's affairs. Penalties were fixed for illicit trade; voting was regulated; and an important proviso stated that any of the Company's servants guilty of oppressing any of His Majesty's subjects beyond the seas or of any other crime or offence, might be tried in the King's Bench just as if the offence had been committed in England.

The terrible financial straits to which the Company was reduced, coupled with rumours of mismanagement, no doubt led everyone to think that something must be done in the way of change. News, too, of the great famine in Bengal of 1770 told in the same direction. An inquiry was held in 1772, and 13 Geo. III. c. 10 prevented the Company from sending any commissioners to India for six months from December 7, 1772, unless allowed to do so by Act of Parliament. Then came the famous Regulating Act of 1773, 13 Geo. III. c. 63, of which we must now give a brief summary.

It was described as an Act for establishing certain regulations for the better management of the affairs of the East India Company, as well in India as in Europe. In future the twenty-four Directors were to be chosen for four years instead of annually. No person who had been employed in the East Indies was to be chosen a Director until he had returned and resided in England for at least two years. A proprietor who held £1,000 worth of stock and