Cap. III. Of the Lands All the lands in the kingdom belong to the King: therefore all the lands in the provinces are subject to the Nawab. With him, or his representatives, farmers agree for the cultivation of such an extent, on reserving to themselves such a proportion of the produce. This proportion is settled according to the difficulty or ease of raising the grain, and seldom exceeds a third. On the coast of Coromandel, where excessive heats and infrequent rains exact the utmost labour to bring rice to perfection; if these farmers were not mildly dealt with, they would undertake nothing, and the whole country would be famished. Here, therefore, encouragement is given to them, and the government will sometimes be at the expense of works to assist them in the labour of raising and conveying water through the land. The province of Bengal is the most fertile of any in the universe, more so than Egypt, and with greater certainty. A stratum of the richest mould upon a bottom of sand, the equal level of the country, and not a stone to be picked up in the space of some hundred miles, whilst shells are found everywhere. Such signs declare the soil to have been formed by the retreat of the sea; and in such a soil excessive rains falling at particular periods, cannot but render the cultivation of it to be scarce a labour. The country about Dacca, where the Ganges disembogues itself by a hundred mouths into the ocean, is alone sufficient to supply the whole province of Bengal with rice and every other part of the province, if duly cultivated, would produce exceedingly more than its occasions. Cap. V. Of the Administration of Justice in Civil Cases (P. 443.) The superiority of their numbers in every province of Indostan, may have first given rise to the custom of devolving the office of Diwan upon a Hindu and the sense of their superior industry and abilities may have confirmed this custom; which nevertheless is not so absolute as to exclude the Moors entirely if any favourite of the Nawab hath application and capacity equal to the task, his being a Moor will certainly give him that preference, which a kind of necessity alone seems to have established amongst the Hindus. : The Diwan is, by his office, the chief judge of the province from whose tribunal no appeal is made, as by suffering him to preside in the seat of judgment, it is known that the Nawab will confirm his decrees. A Nawab, who through humanity is led to enquire into the condition of his subjects, may sometimes be seen to preside at the Durbar in person; during which time the Diwan has no authority but what the countenance of his master gives him. No man is refused access to the Durbar, or seat of judgment; which is exposed to a large area, capable of containing the multitude: here justice, or the appearance of it, is administered upon all but festival days, by the Diwan, if the Nawab is absent; or by a deputy, in the absence of the Diwan.1 The plaintiff discovers himself by crying aloud, Justice! Justice until attention is given to his importunate clamours. He is then ordered to be silent, and to advance before his judge; to whom, after having prostrated himself, and made his offering of a piece of money, he tells his story in the plainest manner, with great humility of voice and gesture, and without any of those oratorical embellishments which compose an art in freer nations. The wealth, the consequence, the interest, or the address of the party, become now the only considerations. . . . The friends who can influence, intercede; and, excepting where the case is so manifestly proved as to brand the failure of redress with glaring infamy (a restraint which human nature is born to reverence) the value of the bribe ascertains the justice of the cause. This is so avowed a practice, that if a stranger should enquire, how much it would cost him to recover a just debt from a creditor who evaded payment, he would everywhere receive the same answer-the government will keep one-fourth, and give you the rest. Still the forms of justice subsist: witnesses are heard; but browbeaten and removed: proofs of writing produced; but deemed forgeries, and rejected, until the way is cleared for a decision, which becomes totally or partially favourable, in proportion to the methods which have been used to render 1 Orme does not seem to realise that strictly the Nawab and Diwan represented two distinct spheres of government: the Nawab the military and police administration, the Diwan the financial administration with civil justice related thereto. But this distinction had become confused since the decay of the Mogul Empire; the Diwan, nominally an inde pendent agent of the Mogul, had in many cases become the creature of the Nawab, and sometimes acted simply as a sort of Prime Minister. it such; but still with some attention to the consequences of a judgement, which would be of too flagrant iniquity not to produce universal detestation and resentment. Cap. IX. General Idea of the Oppression of the Imitation has conveyed the unhappy system of oppression which prevails in the government of Indostan throughout all ranks of the people, from the highest even to the lowest subject of the empire. Every head of a village calls his habitation the Durbar, and plunders of their meal and roots the wretches of his precinct: from him the Zemindar extorts the small pittance of silver, which his penurious tyranny has scraped together the Faujdar seizes upon the greatest share of the Zemindar's collections, and then secures the favour of his Nawab by voluntary contributions, which leave him not possessed of the half of his rapines and exactions: the Nawab fixes his rapacious eye on every portion of wealth which appears in his province, and never fails to carry off part of it: by large deductions from these acquisitions, he purchases security from his superiors, or maintains it against them at the expense of a war. Subject to such oppression, property in Indostan is seldom seen to descend to the third generation. 3. THE EUROPEAN IDEA OF THE MOGUL EMPIRE From the "Universal Magazine," for June 1757 The riches and power of these monarchs (the Moguls) induced them to take the title of Grand Seignoir, or EmperorKing. Those who fix the treasure of the Empire at the lowest valuation, make it to amount to three hundred or three hundred and fifty millions. His power is so despotic, that he has the sovereign disposal of the lives and effects of his subjects; his will is their only law it decides all controversies, without any persons daring to dispute it, on pain of death. At his command alone the greatest lords are executed: their fiefs, their lands, their posts and offices are changed or taken from them. Few days pass without his appearing at sun-rising, and the lords of his Court are obliged to be then in his apartment, in order to pay him their homages. He shows himself also at noon, to see the fightings of wild beasts; and at evening he appears at a window, from whence he sees the sun set. With that luminary he retires, amidst the noise of a great number of drums and the acclamations of his people. None are permitted to enter the palace but the Princes and great officers of State; who shew so great veneration for him that it is impossible to approach the most sacred things with more profound respect. They accompany all their discourse with continual reverences; they prostrate themselves before him at taking leave; they put their hands on their eyes, then on their breast, and lastly on the earth, to testify they are only dust and ashes in respect to him. They wish him all manner of prosperity as they retire, and go backward till they are out of sight. When he marches at the head of his army, or takes the diversion of hunting, he is attended by above ten thousand men. About one hundred elephants, covered with housings of scarlet velvet and brocade, march at the head of this little army each carries two men, one of whom governs the animal, by touching his forehead with an iron hook, the other holding a large banner of silk embroidered with gold and silver; the first eight carry each a kettle-drum. In the middle of this troop the monarch rides, sometimes mounted on a fine Persian horse, sometimes in a chariot drawn by two white oxen, whose large spreading horns are adorned with gold, and sometimes in a palanquin supported by men. The Princes and great officers compose his retinue, and have five or six hundred elephants, camels or chariots following them, loaded with baggage. The royal palace at Dehlie is said to be four leagues in circumference, and fortified on every side. After passing several courts and streets, separated by different gates, we at last arrive at the apartments of the Mogul, which are in the center of the building. In the first salloon is a balustrade of silver, where the officers of the guard are posted; nor are any except the great lords of the Court permitted to enter farther, without orders. This leads into the chamber of ceremony, where there is another balustrade of gold, inclosing the throne of massy gold, and profusely enriched with diamonds, pearls and other precious stones. None but the King's sons are permitted to enter this balustrade, or to fan themselves, in order to cool the air and drive away the flies. The Empire of the Great Mogul is divided into forty provinces, all which, except two, have titles of kingdoms, and their names generally derived from that of the capital. But, amongst this great number of provinces, some do not depend entirely on the Great Mogul, but whose inhabitants form small separate States, living under Princes whom they call Rajas or Nawabs, or under a sort of republican government. But all are vassals or tributaries to the Great Mogul though they do not always think themselves under an obligation of consulting him every time they make war against a neighbouring State, or any European Settlement that may happen to be in their Province. (Printed by S. C. Hill, Bengal in 1756–7, iii. 98.) D |