faulter suffered severely, no disgrace attached to his offspring or relatives. He was himself cast into prison, was tortured, sometimes had the choice submitted to him to embrace Mahomedanism or perish. His private property, (for the Zemindars generally possessed private property independently of the Russoom and Nancar,) was seized. He might even be deposed, but, in such a case, his office invariably passed to the next heir, or was administered by the guardians of that heir, provided he were a minor. Nor was it the office alone which thus descended to the son of a delinquent. All the honours, profits, and emoluments arising from it, came undiminished to the new occupant, nay, they were not unfrequently restored to the delinquent himself, after he had made good his deficiencies, or endured his allotted punishment. By this means, though individuals might occasionally undergo extreme misery, the ancient families of the country were upheld, and the hereditary magistrates, to whom the people had, for ages, been wont to look for protection and support, preserved their respectability.

I have said nothing in this sketch of the courts of Nizamut Adawlut or Dewanny Adawlut, established at the seats of the provincial governments; nor will I swell an account, already too prolix, by giving any description of them here. Enough is done when I state in few words, that the former was the supreme court of justice, the latter, of revenue, to which all appeals might be carried from subordinate courts, and before which all disputes between high functionaries night be settled. The latter was wholly administered by Hindoos; indeed, the revenue affairs of the Mogul government were entirely managed by the infidels.

One word of general remark upon the systems described, and I relieve you and your readers from the annoyance of pursuing such inquiries farther.

It will be seen, that in the systems of government acted upon as well by the Rajahs as the Moguls, there were many arrangements totally at variance with all our notions of propriety. Of these, the combination of offices, the intrusting to the collectors of the revenue, for example, any authority to decide disputes arising from the mode of its collection, cannot fail to strike a

European in the light of a political paradox, and such was the light in which it was viewed by Lord Cornwallis. Neither can it be denied that the whole was rude. I mean rude, in comparison with the more perfect system of our native country. Still there was a foundation to build upon. A wise legislator would have taken advantage of it, and introduced improvements slowly and cautiously, as the progress of refinement and of knowledge authorized. In the institution of Punchayets, in particular, there was not only the ground-work, but almost the essence of that boast of British legislation, the trial by jury. Nor was it only in the adjustment of civil disputes that Punchayets were employed. Under the native governments, each caste had its Punchayet, or Paranimic, to decide questions of caste, each trade had its Chowdry, or head man, with its Punchayet, to decide questions of trade, and, above all, each village had its well-known resident hereditary magistrate, possessing just authority sufficient to keep the peace, and not power enough to disturb it. Then there was the village police, the Pergunnah Paiks, and at the head of the whole the Zemindar. No doubt everything depended upon the vigour and activity of the supreme government. Whilst it was ably administered, the subordinate functionaries dared not neglect their duty, or oppress the people; when it become feeble, the hinge of society was broken. But with a British Governor-General and Council at the head of affairs, such could not have been the case; and the people might have been at this day happy, and comparatively virtuous, had we only left them to the guidance of their own institutions.

The difference between our government and that of the Moguls lies shortly here. The latter hardly interfered at all with the ancient customs of the Hindoos. They advanced their Hindoo subjects to places of the highest honour, and threw open to them all offices and employments; they respected their prejudices, upheld their consequence, and exacted from them no more than a fixed tax, and a nominal allegiance. We, on the contrary, have pursued a course diametrically opposite. By way of conferring upon our subjects an equal government, we have struck at the root of all their prejudices, and overthrown

all their favourite institutions. We shut them out from all offices of trust; we hold out to them no hopes of rising to honour and respectability in their own country. We have ruined the ancient families, without increasing the prosperity of the lower orders; and with the words justice and law continually in our mouths, we confer none of the blessings consequent upon these on our native population. In my next letter I shall give you a faithful account of our enactments, and, în the meanwhile, I conclude my present with the following quotation. It is a continuation of Mr Davis's report, of which you have given the first part in my former letter.

"The objection most insisted against the native system, is the check to industry that arose from the share taken by the government in the produce from extended cultivation, and the revenue received in kind by a division of the crop; and it must be acknowledged, that integrity in the officers employed, or a vigilant superintendance of them, was indispensable to a just administration of such a system. It may, on the other hand, be observed, that under that system no individual concerned could be dispossessed of his land, or deprived of his subsistence. If crops were abundant, the advantage was mutual between the cultivator, the government, and its officers; if scanty, each party bore its share of the hardships. The rent, or the government share on the land cultivated, was already as fixed as any ordinance could make it, and in perpetuity; the proprietory right, if it resided anywhere consistently with our definition of the thing, resided with the cultivator who best deserved it, or with the Mundul or Malik, who first established the village in which the land was situated. No Zemindar, Moccuddim, or others of the divers classes dependent on the state, could be exposed to ruin, while their services were duly rendered under an equitable administration of the government. It remained for the Bri

"It is the more remarkable, and to be deplored, that this ruin of the Zemindars should have proceeded from views originally directed to a redress of their alleged grievances, and have immediately followed from measures conscientiously undertaken for their benefit. The object of the legislature was, to inquire into the alleged grievances of the land-holders, (represented to have been dispossessed of the management of their lands,) and to afford them redress, and establish permanent rules for the settlement and collection of the revenue, and for the administration of justice, founded on the ancient laws and long usages of the country.' No one can doubt, that Lord Cornwallis meant, by his new arrangements, to bestow upon the Zemindars, and the natives in general, the full measure of the benefits intended for them; nor is there any room for the least imputation, on the inte grity of those by whose counsels he was influenced in the prosecution of his benevolent views. But his lordship had no experience of the people; it was impossible for him to become acquainted with them. The same, or little short of it, might be said of some of his lordship's advisers; for time spent in India does not confer a knowledge of the people and their concerns, unless it be spent in particular situations, where that knowledge is to be acquired.

"The field of inquiry, too, in Bengal, was disadvantageous; for, in that part of India, the innovations of the Mahomedans, and the frequent changes of the government, had introduced a

state of things, wherein little system or regularity could be found. The respectable "authority of Sir John Shore, (now Lord Teignmouth,) represented the amounts and detail of the land revenue in Bengal, as a labyrinth, where no system could be discovered, no uniformity could be traced. Enough, however, remained to have suggested further inquiries, which, if prosecuted, would have shown that something better had existed in former times. Subsequent inquiries, particularly in the Carnatic, and on the western side of the peninsula, have shown that a regular system of internal administration has, from ancient times, existed, and does still exist, under which property is attainable, and protection afforded to it when attained; and not a doubt can now remain, that it is the same system under which the country arrived at the high degree of prosperity and opulence alluded to by Mr Hamilton. Had the same information been possessed by Lord Cornwallis, it is not unlikely that his lordship would have been influenced by it, and have conformed, more strictly than he did, to the instructions he carried out, by accommodating his institutions to the subsisting manners and usages of the people, rather than by any abstract theories drawn from other countries, or applicable to a different state of things. Instead of conforming to these views of the Court of Directors, it must appear that most of the enact ments of the code of 1793 are theoretically founded on European notions, and wholly adverse to the practice and feelings of the natives of India; but more especially to such of them as have been designated, I will not say how correctly, as the principes, the great lords, the numerous nobility and gentry, freeholders, religious communities, and public functionaries.' Most of the classes meant in this quotation, have, in the operation among them of the code in question, experienced more and greater calamities,

than it is probable their ancestors ever did, amid the vicissitudes arising from conquest and despotic sway. Their lands are sold, their offices abolished, their followers and dependents dispersed, all reverence for them has ceased with their power and influence, and no means exist whereby they might attain to any portion of their former rank and opulence. They are shut out from offices of confidence and dignity, and their descendants, however high their birth or caste, must now mix with the lowest ranks of the community, or pe rish through want. To the great Zemin dars, almost without exception, and to a large portion of the lesser ones, the gift of proprietary right in the land, combined with the regulations under which it was to be enjoyed, has proved a

Pandora's box, full of evil consequences to them, and working ultimately their utter ruin. The theoretical enactments which accompanied this great measure, and were conse quent to it, have proved equally fatal to the class composed of the officers of the state. The Moccudims, or heads of villages, except where there was no Zemindar, were reduced to the condition of mere cultivators; the Canongoes, with their Gomostas, or agents, were dismissed; the Chowderies, of which every class of tradesmen, or mechanics, had one at their head, were no longer recognized as possessing authority; the Zemindarry servants employed in the police, a very numerous body, were dismissed, and their land resumed.

"After what has been said, it may appear no unreasonable presumption to assume, that were Lord Cornwallis to commence his career in India anew, he probably would pause on the question of a perpetual settlement of the land revenue, at least until some more practicable means should be discover ed, for relieving the exigencies of the government, by a participation in the increasing wealth of the people, than at present are known to exist."

As the circumstances attending our present tour of duty had in them more of excitation than usual, I shall describe them at greater length.

The air was cold and bracing; it was a fine clear wintry day, when the corps to which I was attached, strength ened by the half of another battalion, began its march to the front. Instead of employing eighteen hundred men at the outposts, nine hundred were now esteemed capable of providing for the safety of the left column of the army; and such was accordingly the extent of the force, which, under the command of a lieutenant-colonel, took the direction of the mayor's house. On arriving there, we found matters in a somewhat different order from that in which we were wont to find them. The enemy, it appeared, had abandoned the ground, which, up to the preceding night, their picquets had occupied. Our advanced parties were, in consequence, pushed forward, and the stations of the extreme sentinels were now in front of that ground, upon which so much fighting had taken place in the beginning of last month. The guards themselves, instead of being hutted in and about the chateau, were disposed among a range of cottages, in the very centre of the field of battle; and the objects which were by this means kept constantly before their eyes, were certainly not of the most cheering or encouraging description.

It fell not to my lot to take charge of a picquet guard on the immediate day of our advance. My business, on the contrary, was to superintend the erection of works, which appeared to me to be erected, as much for the purpose of giving the soldiers employment, and keeping their blood in circulation, as to oppose an obstacle to the troops of Marshal Soult, from whom no serious attack was now apprehended. On the following morning, however, I led my party to the front; nor have I frequently spent twenty-four hours in a state of higher excitement than I experienced during the progress of those which succeeded the movement.

In the first place, the weather had

The

changed greatly for the worse. frost continued, indeed, as intense, perhaps it was more intense than ever; but the snow came down in huge flakes, which a cold north-east wind drove into our faces. The hut into which the main body of the guard was ushered, presented the same ruinous appearance with almost every other house similarly situated; it furnished no shelter against the blast, and very little against the shower. Intelligence had, moreover, been conveyed to us by a deserter, that Soult, irritated at the surprisal of his post upon the Nive, had issued orders to retaliate whenever an opportunity might occur; and it was more than hinted, that one object of the late retrogression from our front, was to draw us beyond our regular line, and so place us in an exposed situation. The utmost caution and circumspection were accordingly enjoined, as the only means of frustrating his designs; and of these the necessity naturally increased as daylight departed.

That I might not be taken by surprise, in case any attack was made upon me after dark, I devoted a good proportion of the day to a minute examination of the country in front, and on each flank of my post. For this purpose I strolled over the fields, and found them literally strewed with the decaying bodies of what had once been soldiers. The enemy, it was evident, had not taken the trouble to bury even their own dead; for of the carcases around me, as many, indeed more, were arrayed in French than in English uniforms. No doubt they had furnished food for the wolves, kites, and wild-dogs from the thickets; for the flesh of most of them was torn, and the eyes of almost all were dug out; yet there was one body, the body of a French soldier, quite untouched; and how it chanced to be so, the reader may judge for himself, as soon as he has perused the following little story, for the truth of which I solemnly pledge myself.

About the middle of the line covered by my chain of sentries, was a small straggling village, containing a single street, about twenty cottages,