former of thofe two objects, than with regard to the latter." We are deeply impreffed with the force of this observation. The candour and veracity of Mr Lambert were far above fufpicion; but, in the plans occafionally fubmitted by that gentleman to the confideration of the Government-General, we always difcovered a more accurate perception of the interests of the Calcutta merchants, than of those of the natives, of the East India Company, or of England.

But are these interests really distinct? That of the Calcutta merchants (a body which comprifes men of the higheft worth) may be allowed to be, in fome refpects, irreconcilable with that of the Company but may it not be correctly affirmed, that the permanent advantage of Bengal, of the Company, and of England, refts on the fame foundations, flows from the fame principles, and must be promoted by the fame measures, in fo far as they are connected? Is it not true, that a step which must prove prejudicial to one of the three, would ultimately produce confequences injurious to the others; and that the permanent advantage refulting to each, from cooperating towards the general profperity, is more than fufficient to compenfate what each must relinquish to obtain that end?

To these questions we reply with a decided conviction in the affirmative but the arguments whence we deduce these conclusions are founded on many general, and many local considerations, to which our limits do not admit even of adverting. A more favourable occasion may possibly soon present itself in the discussion of a momentous question of general policy. shall, then, after doing justice to the eminent perspicuity and talent displayed by the Director, who drew up the report on that important subject, take occasion to prove that, in all human probability, the measure he deprecates would prove still more suddenly, and more fatally injurious to the British interests in India, than even he anticipated. Our arguments will be founded on considerations derived from the internal polity of that country, which have never hitherto been brought under review, on account, probably, of the great development they would require, to persons unacquainted with the peculiar state of society which prevails in our Indian dominions. We are confident that our suggestions will receive the approbation of the persons most competent to form a correct judgment, viz. the gentlemen by whom the charge of administering justice, or collecting the revenues of districts placed under their superintendance, has been exercised. We shall also expect the assent of those who have weighed, with judicious scrutiny, the causes of the phenomena we admire; of a country amply peopled with hardy and intelligent inhabitants,

quietly

quietly submitting to a sway exercised by a handful of strangers, cordially espousing their interests, and sacrificing their lives on the field of battle for the support of their authority. To that numerous and ingenious portion of the community, however, who think that the state of society in other countries, either is, or ought to be, precisely what they see it at home, our arguments, we are afraid, will appear altogether contemptible; though some of them, to adopt the language of Mr Bruce, may even have travelled as far as Paris. In this patriotic class, we suspect we must rank the valiant General Craddock; though we lament that a laudable predilection in favour of leathern caps, should have led to such an effusion of human blood.

The work before us, indeed, invites to no such discussions. Distinguished equally by conciseness and perspicuity, it presents important facts, and avoids general reasonings. On controverted points, the opinions of the author are rather implied than expressed; and although, if we have correctly seized his notions, we can by no means subscribe to all his conclusions, we render a willing testimony to the ability and industry with which he has prosecuted his researches, as well as to the honourable motives. which suggested them.

Just before the year 1794 (when this work was published), a measure of incalculable magnitude had been put in execution, involving the interests of every class of persons in India. A measure equally urged by the Board of Controul, and by the Court of Directors, from considerations of benevolence and justice, and supported, as they imagined, by policy, as well as propriety. A measure which constituted the great object of the successive administrations of the Marquis of Cornwallis, and of Lord Teignmouth; and where plans, dictated by benevolence, were to be executed, it would have been difficult to have selected more zexlous or more intelligent agents. The partisans of the permanent settlement of the revenues were disposed to date the renovation of Bengal from the era of its introduction: less sanguine observers harboured doubts of its efficacy. It would have afforded us infinite gratification, to find from the statements of Mr Colebrooke, that measures suggested by the purest motives had been attended with the desired success; but on this head his readers receive no information; nor do we recollect any passage in this work which appears to be written posterior to 1794; when its merits could not be judged from its effects. Yet some incidental observations lead us to conclude, that the principle on which the permanent settlement was founded, neither coincides with our author's views of justice nor policy. We will now endeavour to exhibit a correct statement of the most important re

sults

sults detailed in this work, and conclude by some strictures on the particular points which we consider as exposed to animadver

sion.

Under the name of Bengal, Mr Colebrooke comprehends all the regions governed by the presidency of Fort William, viz. the whole suba of that name, that of Behar, with such parts of the subas of Allahabad, Berar, and Orissa, as acknowledged the Company's authority, previously to the additions they received during the government of the Marquis of Wellesley. These physical divisions are faintly distinguished by the gradual rise of the level in receding from the sea. The tract of inundation is marked by its ample produce, particularly of rice, and by the superior value of its manufactures. The culture of rice is superseded in the higher lands by that of wheat and barley. The superior stratum is every where clay, with a considerable proportion of silicious sand, fertilized by various salts, and by decayed substances, animal and vegetable.

The results of three calculations, founded on different data, leads our author to conclude that the population of Bengal, in the extensive sense above mentioned, is at least 27 millions of inhabitants. The first is founded on an actual ascertainment, by our author himself, in the district of Puriniyah, which, allowing five to a family, gave 203 inhabitants to a square mile; and applying this result to the whole area, after excluding a fourth as waste lands, we should have 24,740,000 inhabitants for Bengal, Behar, and Benares, exclusive of Orissa and Berar. The second calculation is founded on general surveys of entire pergunnahs in different districts: they lead Mr Colebrooke to the following proportions for the whole of Bengal, viz.

Rivers and lakes (an eighth)

Deemed irreclaimable and barren (a sixth)

Site of towns and villages, highways and ponds, (a twentyfourth)

Free lands (an eighth)

3

1

3

9

24

The result of this calculation, assigning one cultivator the head of a family for every 18 bigas, and supposing the same proportion to subsist between the husbandmen and the artificers as was ascertained in Puriniyah, would, after striking off a fourth for lands entirely waste, give a population of 33 millions for the

whole,

whole, did not other causes of inaccuracy subsist, some of which he has pointed out. The third basis of calculation, though far from furnishing a very solid groundwork, is, in our apprehen sion, preferable to the two above mentioned. It is founded on the quantity of salt consumed; a fact which may in some measure be ascertained by the Company's sales.

• That quantity, compared with a supposed population of 30 millions of people for Bengal and Behar, would indicate an annual confumption of nearly 11 pounds a head; but if we fuppofe the population not to exceed 24 millions, we must then rate the average confumption of falt fo high as 14 pounds, which exceeds all experience in India, even where falt is cheapest.

• Common husbandry fows the rice at the feafon when it should naturally vegetate to gather a crop in the rains: it alfo withholds feed till the second month of that season, and reaps the harvest in the beginning of winter. The rice of this crop is esteemed the best.'

Wheat and barley are sown at the commencement of winter, and reaped in the spring. Most sorts of pulse are either sown or reaped in the winter. Millet, a common food with the lower classes, is restricted to no season. The plough used in Bengal is ill calculated for making a deep impression; repeated ploughings are requisite to prepare the soil for the reception of seed; and it must afterwards be watched, to defend it from the depredations of birds. The operation of weeding is performed with an inconvenient instrument; in reaping, the sickle supplies the place of the scythe; and time is unprofitably occupied in selecting the riper plants.

At the convenience of the hufbandman, the cattle tread out the corn, or his staff thrashes the smaller feeds. The grain is winnowed in the wind, and is ftored either in jars of unbaked earth, or in baskets made of twigs, or of grafs.'

The want of roads prevents the employment of beasts of burden to bring home the harvest. The rotation of crops is guided by no judicious selection; influenced solely by the desire to obtain as much from the land as it can be made to yield within the year, the soil is ultimately impoverished, and soon requires time to recruit. Dung, universally used for fuel, is employed as manure only in the cultivation of sugar cane, mulberry, tobacco, and poppy. The want of capital in manufactures and agricul ture prevents the division of labour; it forces the peasant to unite the labours of the mechanic with the cultivation of the earth, and compels the artist to engage in rural toils.

An ignorant hufbandry,' fays Mr Colebrooke, which exhaufts the land, and neglects the obvious means of reftoring its fertility, and of reaping immediate profit from the operations which might restore it : rude implements, inadequate to the purpofe for which they are formed,

and

and requiring much fuperfluous labour; this again ill divided, and of courfe employed disadvantageously ;-all loudly call for amendment.'

In Bengal, where the revenue of the state has long had the form of land rent, the management of the public finances has a more immediate influence on agriculture than any other part of the administration. The conditions of the Puttahs or Wases, granted by the Zemindars to their tenants, vary extremely in the same districts. When the rent is paid in kind, the usual rate of distribution is half the produce. The local taxes, established in par ticular districts, are a source of infinite vexation and litigation, whilst measurements long omitted, without a rule of record substituted in their place, and former surveys forgotten, or their rates become obsolete, leave no certain rule for adjusting the rents.' But high as the assessment is to which the peasants in Bengal are subjected, they have no right to expect lenity in its exaction from the Zemindars.

Refponfible to government for a tax originally calculated at ten elevenths of the expected rents of their eftates, they have no probable furplus above their expenditure to compenfate for their rifk. Any calamity, any accident, even a delay in his recoveries, may involve a Zemindar in difficulties, from which no economy nor attention can retrieve him. He is not, therefore, likely to be an indulgent and forbearing landlord.'

The fifth chapter is devoted to a statement of the profits of husbandry. The result of Mr Colebrooke's inquiries is, that the cultivation of grain yields little or no profit to the husbandman, who raises it with no other view than as a source of subsistence to his family, in case of the failure of more profitable crops, or to guard against the return of years of scarcity. The price of corn fluctuates in Bengal more than in Europe, and has a considerable influence on the value of all other articles, by creating an unusual competition amongst the sellers, when it is above the common standard. This is in some measure counteracted by the husbandman's possessing a little stock of his own produce, for the consumption of his family; and by the Company's monopoly of certain articles of produce at unvaried rates. The profits of cattle are considerable, and much less precarious; they are derived from the increase of stock, and the sale of the produce, milk, curds, and clarified butter.

The orchard is what chiefly contributes to attach the peasant to his native foil. He feels a fuperftitious predilection for the trees planted by his ancestor; and derives comfort, and even profit from their fruit.'

The mango, palmyra, cocoa-nut, date, and areca, which shade. his humble cottage, administer the luxuries of his table, and supply him with articles of ready sale. For the supply of conve

niences,