Inexperience made
Cornwallis
largely dependent on advisers both
in framing his policy, and, still more, in working it out.
in framing his policy, and, still more, in working it out.
Cambridge History of India - v5 - British India
213.
## p. 427 (#455) ############################################
CENTRALISATION OF 1781
427
clear; Hastings had an undisputed authority; his adversaries "had
sickened, died and fled". 1 Tenax propositi, if ever man was, Hastings
continued his endeavours to reorganise the collections, and shortly
there was issued
a permanent plan for the administration of the revenue of Bengal and Bihar,
formed the 20th February, 1781, by the Hon'ble the Governor-General and
Council in their Revenue Department. 2
The main alteration involved cannot be described better than in
the words of the introductory minute. After recalling the temporary
nature of the provincial councils, the easy prelude of another per-
manent mode, and referring to the Revenue Board's proceedings of
23 November, 1773, where the board's intention is "methodically
and completely delineated", the alteration is stated to consist sub-
stantially in this : that
all the collections of the provinces should be brought down to the Presidency
and be there administered by a Committee of the most able and experienced
of the covenanted servants of the Company under the immediate inspection of,
and with the opportunity of constant reference for instruction to, the Governor-
General and Council.
"By this plan”, wrote Hastings, “we hope to bring the whole administration
of the revenues to Calcutta, without any intermediate charge or agency, and to
effect a saving of lacs to the Company and to the Zamindars and ryots. " He
added complacently: "Read the plan and the minute introducing it; it will not
discredit me, but the plan will put to shame those who discredit it”.
Shore, after a year's experience of the plan in working, did not
hesitate emphatically to condemn it.
The new scheme 3 consisted of fourteen paragraphs. Its object was
to reduce the expense of the collections and to restore the revenue
of the provinces as far as possible "to its former standard"; an inde-
finite reference. To this end a new committee of the revenue was
ereated consisting of four members assisted by a diwan; the first
members of this committee were David Anderson, John Shore, Samuel
Charters, and Charles Croftes; Ganga Govind Singh was appointed
diwan. The members of this committee took oath to receive "no
lucrative advantage" from their office, except of course, from their
salary which was made up of 2 per cent. on the monthly net receipts *
and divided proportionally among them. The provincial councils and
appeal courts were abolished, and collectors replaced in all the dist-
ricts. The superintendentship of the Khalsa was abolished and its
functions transferred to the Committee of Revenue; the office of the
rai raian was placed under the Supreme Council and its holder was
specifically forbidden to “interfere in the business transacted by the
diwan of the Committee". Finally, the kanungos were reinstated "in
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 329, 330.
. Governor-General's Proceedings, 20 January, 1781.
3 Colebrooke, op. cit. pp. 213-16.
4 Idem, pp. 215, 216.
## p. 428 (#456) ############################################
428
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
the complete charge and possession of all the functions and powers
which constitutionally appertain to their office”.
The scheme bears all the signs of being prepared in a secretariat.
On paper it possibly appeared extremely reasonable and efficient; in
practice it broke down at every point. The information, valuable as
it was, collected by the commission of 1776, could not, and, by its
authors, was not intended to take the place of that information which
only trained district officers could furnish, but Hastings was bent on
concentration. In 1773, the result of his grouping the various districts
into six divisions under provincial councils resulted in a loss to the
Company's government of much valuable local knowledge and
experience. His plan of 1781 carried concentration still further.
The re-appointment of Collectors appears to suggest an idea of decentra-
lisation. This however was not the case. The collector was denied any inter-
ference with the new settlement of the revenue. The new collectors were
merely figureheads, and the distrust which the council showed in their appoint-
ment could lead to nothing but discouragement. 1
The truth of this comment is exemplified by two quotations
selected at random from the Committee of Revenue's proceedings
for April, 1783. John David Patterson, collector of Rangpur, wrote
on 3 April, 1783, to ask for instructions as to what action he might
take in his district.
There is nothing but confusion; there is no Kanungo to be found, he is
fled the country; the ryots wanting to withhold their payments; the Farmer
seizing everything he can lay his hands upon and swelling up his demands by
every artifice. . . . No pains shall be spared on my part to get at the truth
altho' it is wading through a sea of chicanery on both sides. . . .
On 13 March William Rooke, collector of Purnia, wrote with even
greater detail to the same effect; he reported that the farmer
has repeatedly flogged those who preferred any complaint to me. . . . In the
course of the last ten days a numerous body of ryots from all quarters have
beset me on every side, uncommonly clamorous for justice. Their complaints
exhibit an almost universal disregard and setting aside of their pottahs, an
encrmous increase exacted from them, etc. :
and the letter concludes with a request to be informed of "the degree
of interference which is expected of me by you". The Committee of
Revenue was accustomed to such letters. Within one month of the
establishment of the new scheme it had pointed out that much of
the work of the settlement should be left in detail to the collector.
Shore had ruthlessly exposed, in his minute of 1782, the inefficiency
of the whole scheme. Space unfortunately permits only of a small
quotation from this illuminating criticism, in which he showed that
there could be no check on oppression or extortion, that the real state
.
1 Ascoli, op. cit. pp. 35, 36.
2 Haringtop, op. cit. II, 41-3.
## p. 429 (#457) ############################################
SHORE'S CRITICISM
429
of any district could not be discovered, and that it was impossible
to discriminate truth from falsehood.
I venture to pronounce that the real state of the districts is now less known
and the revenues less understood than in 1774. . . . It is the business of all,
from the ryot to the diwan, to conceal and deceive. With respect to the
Committee of Revenue, it is morally impossible for them to execute the busi-
ness they are entrusted with.
Shore concluded that the committee "with the best intentions and
the best ability and the steadiest application, must after all be a tool
in the hands of their Diwan” and that the system was fundamentally
wrong. Shore's opinion was afterwards endorsed in 1786 when the
Governor-General in Council, in instructing the Committee of
Revenue to appoint collectors for certain districts, observed
from experience we think it past doubt that situated as you are at the Presidency,
you cannot without a local agency secure the regular realisation of the reve-
nues, still less preserve the ryots and other inferior tenants from oppressions. 1
The scheme of 1781 further restored to their old position and
perquisites the sadar kanungos, whose claim to appoint their own
deputies had been correctly contested by the collector of Midnapur,2
wu pointed out that the Committee of Circuit had ordered the
registration of all deputy kanungos as servants of the Company. The
collector of Rangpur in 1784 was similarly restrained from exercising
any control over the deputy kanungos without the express orders of
government. The claim of the kanungos to their arrears of fees was
sanctioned to the extent of over 1,10,000 rupees, and they regained
the full control of their deputies in the districts; their triumph was
complete, and the evil situation exposed by Baber and others in 1772
was restored.
The picture, however, is not entirely black. In 1782 an office,
known as the zamindari daftar, was established for the management
of the estates of minor and female zamindars; it also afforded pro-
tection to zamindars of known incapacity. This was a wise and
beneficent step which anticipated the work of the present court of
wards. The growing influence of officers with district experience can
be seen in the orders issued by the Committee of Revenue to all
collectors in November, 1783, directing them to proceed on tour
throughout their districts in order to form by personal observation
an estimate of the state of the crops and their probable produce for
the current year. In the past, district-officers had in vain sought
permission to tour through their districts, but this had always been
peremptorily refused by the board. The wholesome influence now
exerted on the board by practical men who had served in districts
1 Colebrooke, op. cit. pp. 243-4.
2 Committee of Revenue's proceedings, 12 September, 17 September, 8
November, 1781.
3 Idem, May and September, 1782
## p. 430 (#458) ############################################
430
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
>
was to grow stronger. Anderson, Shore and Charters were men who
had had a real mufassal training, and Croftes had been a member of
the 1776 commission. They knew that "in every pargana throughout
Bengal there are some district usages which cannot clearly be known
at a distance", yet which must be known if the administration is to
be just and efficient. In 1786 a great and beneficial change comes
over the revenue administration of Bengal; it is not too much to
attribute this to the district experience of the members of the com-
mittee appointed in 1781. For five years they laboured under the
evils and difficulties of attempting to administer a system which was
over-centralised, and which placed secretariat theories before district
experience. In 1786 the district officer comes to his own. Before
discussing these changes in detail some important facts must be
briefly noticed. In 1784 Pitt's India Act was passed. Section 39 of
this act directs that the conditions governing the collection of land
revenue shall be “forthwith enquired into and fully investigated” and
that “permanent rules” for the future regulation of the payments and
services due "from the rajas, zemindars and other native land-
holders” will be established. Thus the opinion of which Francis was
the leading advocate, that the zamindar was a landowner, was adopted
by the act and the permanent rules, which Lord Cornwallis was sent
out to put into effect, were, to the great misfortune of the Bengal
cultivators, founded on that assumption. Before the details of the
act could reach India Hastings had resigned his charge; on 8 February,
1735, he delivered over charge to Macpherson and in the same month
sailed for England. His influence on the collection of the land
revenue. in Bengal was unhappy. In 1772 he was mainly responsible
for the defects which marked the quinquennial settlement; 'in 1781,
his further attempt at centralisation reduced the collections to chaos.
He possessed, as has been shown, very little first-hand knowledge of
district revenue work. It has been claimed for him that
he adopted the principle of making a detailed assessment based on a careful
enquiry in each district and . . . he conferred on the raiyats who were the actual
cultivators, the protection of formal contracts.
Neither of these encomiums can be substantiated. The assessment of
1772 was summary and admitted by its authors to have been too high.
The system of putting up the farms to open auction resulted in utterly
fictitious values that were never realised and was soon afterwards
forbidden by the Company. The system of pattahs, or leases, com-
pletely broke down, and failed, then as later, to protect the ryot.
Furthermore, the reinstatement of the kanungos, the abolition of
collectors, the establishment of the provincial diwans, and lastly the
excessive power placed in the hands of the diwan of the Committee
of Revenue, all testify to the incapacity of Hastings in his administra-
.
1
1 Letter from the Burdwan Council, Governor-General's Proceedings; ia
April, 1777.
## p. 431 (#459) ############################################
)
MACPHERSON'S REFORMS
431
tion of the Bengal land revenue; it is not too much to say that in this
respect his achievements compare unfavourably with those of
Muhammad Reza Khan. But Hastings was not a civil servant of the
To judge him, therefore, by the crown standard of a later
date is unjust and unhistorical. The Company's servants were imbued
with one idea : they came to serve the Company first and last; their
intensity of purpose made the East India Company master of India;
and this purpose was not the less strong because it did not profess to
be governed by the restrictions which are attached to an administra-
tive service of the crown. Hastings gave his employers a service and
devotion that was unflinching in its loyalty, that feared no difficulty,
that shrank from no adversary; although he may have failed in his
personal handling of the land revenue, he is entitled to the credit of
having selected some most able officers to deal with this branch of
the administration. Conspicuous among these were Shore, David
Anderson, Samuel Charters, Charles Croftes and James Grant. In
the same week as Hastings handed over charge of the government, a
letter 1 from the court of directors was received calling for an accu-
rate account of the administration at the precise period at which
Hastings resigned his office; a foretaste, had he but known, of the
anxious days ahead.
On 25 April, 1786, the new scheme was published: it spelt
decentralisation. “The division of the province into districts is the
backbone of the whole system of the reforms. ” 2 The collector becomes
a responsible officer, making the settlement and collecting the reve-
nue; the provincial diwans were abolished; and the districts were
reorganised into thirty-five more or less fiscal units, instead of the
previous "series of fiscal divisions over which the earlier collectors
had exercised their doubtful authority";g these thirty-five districts
were reduced in 1787 to twenty-three. These measures of the local
government were reinforced by orders from the court of directors
dated 21 September, 1785, which were published in Calcutta on 12
June, 1786; under them the Committee of Revenue was reconstituted
and officially declared to be the Board of Revenue. The president of
the board was to be a member of the governor-general's council. The
special regulations drawn up for the guidance of the board may be
read in the pages of Harington and Colebrooke. Its duties were those
of controlling and advising the collectors and sanctioning their settle-
ment. On 19 July the office of Chief Saristadar was instituted to bring
the revenue records, hitherto the property of the kanungos, under the
control of government. This measure was long overdue, and had been
urged by the abler district officers since 1772, as being "no less
calculated to protect the great body of the people from oppression
2
1 Committee of Revenue's Proceedings, 14 February, 1785.
2 Ascoli, op. cit. pp. 38-40.
8 Idem.
## p. 432 (#460) ############################################
432
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
than to secure the full and legal right of the Sovereign". James Grant
was selected to be the first Chief Saristadar, being specially chosen
for his interest in and research among the revenue records. For the
first time since the assumption of the diwanni, government had made
a resolute effort to reduce the kanungos to their constitutional position
in the state.
The reforms of 1786 were, therefore, the work of men who desired
to gain the confidence of and to co-operate with the local district
officer. The authors of the reforms were convinced from their own
district experience that the real work of the revenue must be carried
out by trusted officers on the spot; they set themselves to create the
conditions and atmosphere in which those officers could best work.
The period 1765-86 in the administration of the land revenue in
Bengal by the Company's servants is a record of progress from the
employment of untested theories to the establishment of an adminis-
tration based on much solid knowledge. A careful perusal of the
voluminous manuscript proceedings of the Committees of Revenue
during those years reveals a fact too little known, namely, that this
progress was largely the result of unrecognised work by the district
officers of the Company in their own districts where, generally
speaking, they laboured to establish a just and humane collection of
the land revenue. Their advice, based on sound local knowledge, was
too often rejected by their official superiors in Calcutta, by whom,
as well as by the Court of Directors, they were regarded with suspi-
cion and even hostility. Their persistence had its reward; twenty
years after the assumption of the diwanni the first sound and just
administration of the land revenue was established.
NOTE. The reader has doubtless found the various references to boards and
committees of revenue confusing.
In 1769 the Council had delegated its authority in revenue matters to a
"select committee” drawn from its own members. This select committee in
1772 appointed the Committee of Circuit to examine the conditions with a view
to making a new settlement. The Committee of Circuit in August, 1772, pro-
posed that the whole Council should compose a Board of Revenue—this was
established in October, 1772, as the Committee of Revenue, and remained in
existence till 1781, when it was reorganised and composed of members junior
to and subordinate to the Supreme Council, but still retained its name "Com-
mittee of Revenue”. The term “board" is used indifferently by contemporary
writers up to 1781; after 1781 it indicates the Supreme Council when sitting to
hear revenue appeal cases from the Committee of Revenue. The modern Board
of Revenue dates from 1786, when it replaced the second Committee of Revenue.
## p. 433 (#461) ############################################
CHAPTER XXVI
1
THE BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM,
1786-1818
THE Select Committee of 1781 had been directed to find means
for gaining not only "security and advantage" for Britain but "the
happiness of the native inhabitants," and from the discussions of the
years 1781-4 certain maxims of local government had clearly emerged.
There must be a reform of abuses among the Company's servants;
the methods by which they grew rich must be watched; they must
no longer take presents. Their trading activities must no longer
operate to destroy the trade of native merchants and bankers. The
system of monopolies must be restricted. The rights of zamindars
and land-holders must not be superseded in order to increase the
revenues. There must be even-handed justice for Europeans and
Indians alike.
The instructions to Cornwallis embodied the principles thus de-
scribed. In relation to local government three main subjects were
discussed. First, there was the land revenue. It was to be handled
leniently : “a moderate jama, regularly and punctually collected"
was to be preferred to grandiose but unrealised schemes. It was to
be settled “in every practicable instance” with the zamindars. Ulti-
mately the settlement was to be permanent, but at present it was to
be made for ten years. Secondly, there was the question of adminis-
tration. This was to be organised upon a simple and uniform basis.
The frequent changes of recent years had produced injury and
extravagance, and made "steady adherence to almost any one system”
a preferable policy. The higher officers should be Europeans; and
the subordinates Indians, as being more suited to the detailed work
of the province. These higher officers were to be chosen carefully
froni the principal servants of the Company; men "distinguished for
good conduct and abilities, and conversant with the country langu-
ages". They should be adequately paid, partly by salary, partly
by commission. Their districts were to be large; there should not be
more than twenty, or at most twenty-five, in the whole province. In
the -settlement of the revenue, and in the administration of justice,
they were to have wide authority.
Thirdly, there was the judicial system. The instructions contem-
plated the continuance of the existing system of civil justice, under
European judges. In the districts the collectors of revenue were to
be, also, judges of the civil courts; for this would "tend more to
simplicity, energy, justice and economy" In criminal jurisdiction,
too, the existing system was to be maintained. Indian control was to
28
## p. 434 (#462) ############################################
434
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
continue. Although the collector was to enjoy magisterial powers of
arrest, “the power of trial and punishment must on no account be
exercised by any other than the established officers of Mahomedan
judicature". The judicial system indeed was to be informed with.
European ideas of justice, but to be governed by Indian usages. One
point recurred frequently throughout the instructions. There was to
be a general movement for purification and economy. Abuses of all
kinds were to be swept away; peculation was to cease; useless offices
were to be reduced, and the interests of economy and simplicity were
to regulate the various branches of the administrative system. Such
was the task of Cornwallis.
The proposal to make Cornwallis the first instrument of the new
policy was first mooted in 1782 during the administration of 'Shel-
burne;a and his appointment had been one feature of the scheme for
Indian reform proposed by Dundas in the report of the Secret Com-
mittee of 1781. The Fox-North coalition rejected the idea, but Pitt
revived it on their defeat. The negotiations began in April, 1784;3
at the end of the year they seemed to have failed completely; a
renewal in February, 1785, was again a failure; and it was not until
February, 1786, that Cornwallis accepted. Then the union of the
military command with the governor-generalship, and the promise
that the governor-general should be independent of his council,
induced Cornwallis to accept. He finally landed at Calcutta in
September, 1786.
Cornwallis was a man of middle age with extensive military
experience. He had taken part in the campaigns of the Seven Years'
War, and had gained sufficient reputation to secure his appointment
in 1776 to command in America. There, his ultimate failure, after
some brilliant preliminary successes, did not suffice to ruin his career.
Even his opponent, Fox, paid homage to his abilities in 1783, and his
employment under Pitt on the mission of 1785 to Prussia was sufficient
evidence of the trust in which he held him. Of the affairs of India,
he had little knowledge and no experience. He is distinguished as
the first governor-general who did not climb to power from the ranks
of the Company's service. Appointed by the Company, he owed his
nomination to the ministry. His selection was one more evidence of
the new spirit in Indian affairs. It brought India a stage nearer to
incorporation in the overseas empire of Britain.
Inexperience made Cornwallis largely dependent on advisers both
in framing his policy, and, still more, in working it out. The broad
1 The instructions are in a series of dispatches dated 12 April, 1786. They are
to be found in I. O. Records, Despatches to Bengal, vol. XV. One of the most
important of these is printed as Appendix 12 to the Second Report from the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India
Company. Parliamentary Papers, 1810, V, 13.
Cornwallis to Pitt, & November, 1784. Ross, Correspondence, 1, 179.
Ross, op. cit. I, 167.
4 Idem, p. 208.
3
## p. 435 (#463) ############################################
CORNWALLIS'S ADVISERS
435
lines of his action were laid down by the administration; the instruc-
tions of the court of directors gave more detailed guidance. But
much was left necessarily to the men on the spot, and hence the
servants of the Company by their practical knowledge had great
influence on the result: Cornwallis acknowledged plainly his debt
to them. Perhaps the chief of them was John Shore, chosen especially
by the directors to supply the local knowledge which Cornwallis
lacked. “The abilities of Mr. Shore", Cornwallis wrote a month after
his arrival, "and his knowledge in every branch of the business of
this country, and the very high character which he holds in the settle-
ment, render his assistance to me invaluable. ”i And again in 1789
in connection with the revenue settlement, he said, “I consider it as
singularly fortunate that the public could profit from his great ex-
perience and uncommon abilities". 2 In revenue matters Cornwallis
trusted mainly to Shore. He was by far the most experienced of the
Company's servants in this branch, for he had been in its service
since 1769, and had held important revenue offices since 1774. Francis
had brought him to the front, but Hastings also had recognised his
merit.
James Grant is indeed as famous as Shore in connection with the
revenue settlement. But Grant had but little practical experience.
His reputation has come from his wide study of the revenue system,
and the series of published works in which he stated the results of his
learning. He was an expert rather than a man of affairs. As saristadar
he had unrivalled opportunity for studying revenue records, and
Cornwallis retained the office of saristadar till Grant went home in
1789. But in making important decisions he preferred men of experi-
ence to men of learning. After Shore, Cornwallis therefore put
Jonathan Duncan, another experienced collector; and later governor
of Bombay. He was little known in England when Cornwallis arrived,
but "he is held in the highest estimation by every man, both European
and native, in Bengal", wrote Cornwallis in 1787, "and, next to Mr
Shore, was more capable of assisting me, particularly in re
matiers, than any man in this country”. 3 He had, said Cornwallis in
1789, “besides good health . . . knowledge, application, integrity, and
temper", the last “not the least useful”. * Although a junior, he was
recommended by Cornwallis for a seat on the council as early as
1788. 5 And in the last stages of the revenue settlement Cornwallis
found consolation in the approval of Duncan for his differences with
Shore over the question of permanence.
The final decision in that matter was due, however, largely to
Charles Grant. When Dundas decided to support Cornwallis against
enue
")
1 Cornwallis to Dundas, 15 November, 1786. Ross, op. cit. 1, 227.
2 Cornwallis to Court of Directors, 2 August, 1789. Ross, op. cit. I, 545.
3 Cornwallis to Dundas, 14 August, 1787. Ross, op. cit. I, 271.
4 Cornwallis to N. Smith, 9 November, 1789. Ross, op. cit. I, 449.
5 Dundas to Cornwallis, 20 February, 1789. Ross, op. cit. 1, 410-11.
## p. 436 (#464) ############################################
436
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
1
the advice of Shore, it was partly at least owing to the representations
of Charles Grant. He had no personal knowledge of revenue matters,
but he received the greatest share in the confidence of Cornwallis,
and had given him invaluable help during the years 1786-90. When
Grant sailed for home in 1790 Cornwallis recommended Dundas "to
converse with him frequently upon every part of the business of this
Country", and his zeal for the governor-general's interests gave him
considerable influence over Dundas during the years 1790-3. James
Grant (a cousin of Charles),- like Shore and Duncan, specialised on
the revenue side. But Charles Grant was the chief adviser in matters
of trade. His loss "in the commercial line", wrote Cornwallis when
he left India, "is irreparable". He had been secretary to the Board
of Trade in the time of Hastings and had been appointed by the
board in 1781 commercial resident at Malda. He was outstanding
both in experience and integrity. At first, at least, Cornwallis thought
him the only honest man on the commercial side, and trusted very
largely to him in his attempt to reform that branch of the adminis-
tration. In this work Cornwallis had also the help of Charles Stuart,
member of council and president of the Board of Trade (1786-9).
Stuart, however, never gained in the same degree the confidence of
Cornwallis, and he lacked the wide commercial experience of
Charles Grant.
In his judicial work Cornwallis had also an invaluable adviser.
Here the Company's servants could be of but limited use. Cornwallis
took full advantage of their experience in judicial business, but their
experience was relatively small and they lacked expert knowledge.
Some of them-Charles Grant among them-were of great value in
carrying out reforms: but only the judges could help in devising them.
Cornwallis was, therefore, fortunate in the aid of Sir William Jones,
an oriental scholar of reputation unrivalled in his own time, and a
man of great practical ability, who had devoted many years to the
study and practice of the law. In 1783 he had come to India as judge
of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, and he brought to his
task the zeal of an enthusiast, and the knowledge of an expert. “A
good system of laws" seemed to him the first necessity of India; and,
following the lead of Hastings, he set himself to this end to codify
the existing Hindu and Muhammadan laws. But he realised also the
need for "due administration" and a "well-established peace". He
gave, therefore, full aid to Cornwallis in his reform of the judicial
administration and in the regulation of the police.
Although the policy that Cornwallis came to enforce in 1786 was
new, it was not wholly new. In every direction Cornwallis built
1 Cornwallis to Dundas, 12 February, 1790. Ross, op. cit. I, 480.
2 Firminger (ed. ), Fifth Report . . . on the Affairs of the East India Com-
pany . . . 1812, 1, p. xiv.
:: Ross, op. cit. 1, 306.
.
## p. 437 (#465) ############################################
CORNWALLIS'S CHARACTER
437
on foundations already laid or begun to be laid by his predecessors,
and especially by Hastings. It was the emphasis rather than the
principle that was new; but the principles were now clearly stated,
and the strength of the home government was used to enforce them.
Every aspect of reform was foreshadowed in the work or in the
projects of Hastings, and hence the solidity of the work of Cornwallis.
Yet even when all allowance has been made, much credit must be
given to Cornwallis himself. Certainly no man of genius, he con-
tributed no new ideas to the work he undertook. He was not an
expert like Jones or Grant, nor a man of wide experience like Shore.
He was not a doctrinaire like Francis, nor an inventive genius like
Hastings. He was content, as Hastings had never been, to plead a
command from home as a final cause for decision, and this respect
for authority was his outstanding characteristic. But in spite of this
he possessed great qualities and stood for important principles. Above
all, he was, beyond reproach, upright and honest. He had not to
fear a sudden decline in favour; he had no pettiness of ambition;
he was not a time-server; and he left behind him a tradition of service
a
which was of lasting value in Indian administration. Loyalty and
integrity there had been before, but it was a loyalty to the Company
and an integrity in the Company's affairs. Cornwallis was a public
servant who upheld national and not private traditions. His service
was to the Crown and not to the people over whom he ruled, and he
thus embodied fitly the new spirit of Indian rule.
To this invincible honesty and desire for the public good, he added
a soldier's sense of duty to his superiors. The command of Dundas
or Pitt, or even of the court of directors, was decisive to him. He had
a belief in the possibilities of justice, a faith in the standards by which
conduct would be judged at home. He was determined that these
standards should not be lowered in India, nor overlaid by native
practices. To secure this he gave the higher administrative posts to
Englishmen, and he was always loth to leave real responsibility in
native hands. Yet he was wise enough to see that this was not enough :
these Englishmen must maintain the English standards. They must
be appointed and promoted for merit, not by patronage. In the interests
of this maxim he was prepared to resist the recommendations of all,
even of the Prince Regent or of the directors. Lastly, every deviation
from honesty must be rigorously punished.
This is the system Cornwallis set out to establish, and no doubt
because it was practical rather than ideal, he came much nearer than
most reformers to a realisation of his aims.
а
When Cornwallis landed in Bengal in September, 1786, important
changes in administration had just taken place. More than twenty
years of experiment had gone to make them, and the recent innovations
were rather a further stage in experiment than a final reorganisation.
Much of the work of Cornwallis also was experimental in character,
## p. 438 (#466) ############################################
438
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
but his greatest claim to importance is that he permanently established
some features of administration.
It is necessary to go back more than twenty years to explain the
character of the system with which Cornwallis dealt. The main work
of the Company in India had at one time consisted, like that of any
other company for overseas trade, in import from England and export
home. The import had from early times consisted mainly of specie,
so that the most burdensome duty of the Company's servants was
the provision of the cargoes for England, cargoes for the most part of
raw silk, wool, cotton, or indigo; in other words the “investment". In
the mid-eighteenth century the import of specie ceased : the import of
English goods, never large, was still comparatively small, and the main
source from which the investment was provided—and the local
expenses paid-was the territorial revenue of Bengal.
The result was a dual system of administration. The management
of this revenue and the exercise of responsibilities arising from it, was
one branch of the Company's work; the provision of the investment
the other. Hastings in 1785 had written of the division between “the
general and commercial departments". The Company's servants in
all parts of Bengal wrote to Cornwallis on his arrival describing their
years of experience in the "revenue" or the "commercial line". The
commercial was the senior branch, but the revenue line was already
becoming the more important.
Since 1774 the investment had been under the supervision of the
Board of Trade. Originally a body of eleven members, very imper-
fectly controlled by the Supreme Council, the Board of Trade had been
reorganised in May, 1786. It was now definitely subordinated to the
Supreme Council, and reduced to five members. One of them, the
president, was Charles Stuart, a member of council. Under the board,
the investment was in the hands of the Company's servants stationed
at scattered centres in Bengal. The chief "residents” at the various
stations were responsible to the board for such share of the investment
as had been assigned to them. In dealing with it they had great op-
portunities for good or evil in coming into contact with the people, and
especially they had valuable and recognised facilities for private trade.
From the time of the board's first appointment in 1774 it had been
increasingly the practice to obtain the investment by a series of
contracts. At first these contracts were generally direct with Indian
manufacturers or agents, the residents merely exercising supervision
over them. Since 1778, however, the contracts had been made more
frequently with the Company's servants themselves. So a resident
at one of the Company's stations contracted with the Board of Trade,
and then obtained the goods from the Indian manufacturers at as great
profit as he could get. This system, though a direct breach of their
covenants and of an order of the Company of 1759, was none the less
the general rule. The directors were so complaisant of the breach that
## p. 439 (#467) ############################################
THE EXISTING SYSTEM
439
.
even in their reform proposals of 1786 they did not think hat it was
"necessary to exclude our servants from entering into contracts".
Their criticism was not one of principle, but of practice. The prices
paid were high, the quality of the goods was poor, and there was a
general feeling that corruption and oppression were frequent. The
reform of the Board of Trade and the commercial establishment gene-
rally was one of the first tasks of Cornwallis.
The "general department" was more complicated if less corrupt
in its management of local administration. It had come into existence
slowly during the eighteenth century, and bore still a few marks of its
piecemeal origin, though broadly speaking in 1786 there was one
system for the whole province. It is in this sphere that those frequent
changes had taken place which the directors deprecated. The changes
were really a series of attempts, on the “rule of false” extolled by
Hastings, to reach some satisfactory system for a most complicated and
varied work.
In the “general department”, it may be said without question,
the chief concern was the revenue, and the second the administration
of civil justice. As diwan the Company was responsible for both these
branches of administration. Criminal justice was outside the scope
of the diwan, although the Company here also had obtained a large
measure of control. One of the results of the work of Cornwallis was
that before he left, in 1793, this side of the administrative system had
definitely bifurcated. There was the management of revenue on the
one side: the administration of civil and criminal justice on the other.
But this involved a breach with historical origins, and it was not
achieved until 1793.
In 1786 the chief machinery in the sphere of revenue was the
Board of Revenue. This body was stationed at Calcutta, and beforc
Cornwallis landed, had just undergone change, like the Board of
Trade. In July, 1786, at the instance of the court of directors it had
received an addition to its existing membership. There were to be,
as previously, four members; but a president was added, who must be
a member of the Supreme Council. The president appointed in 1786
was John Shore.
The work of the revenue administration concerned certain main
sources of revenue. By far the most important was the revenue from
land, and the machinery for revenue administration had grown up
mainly in connection with this. There was also, however, the sair
revenue-from customs and excise-and the revenues from the opium
contract and the monopoly of salt. In 1786 the sair revenue was
managed by the same agencies as the revenue from land. The opium
revenue had been managed ever since 1773 by a contract with certain
Indians, who paid a royalty to the Company. In 1785 the contract
had been disposed of to the highest bidder on a four-years' agreement.
This system was, therefore, in force when Cornwallis arrived. In
## p. 440 (#468) ############################################
440
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
connection with the opium, the duties of the Company's servants,
when once the contract had been let, were limited to a general right
of enquiry to prevent the oppression of the cultivators. The monopoly
of salt was another source of revenue. Here again the system in force
was at one time one of contract. But in 1780 Hastings had substituted
a system of European agency. A number of the Company's servants
were employed to superintend the manufacture and sale of salt, the
price being fixed annually by the Supreme Council. Whereas, there-
fore, work in connection with the sair revenue and the opium contract
was undertaken by the same officers as those of the land revenue, a
small separate establishment, responsible directly to the Supreme
Council, dealt with the monopoly of salt.
The land revenue organisation consisted, under the board of
Revenue, of a number of the Company's servants, known already as
collectors. Here also reorganisation had taken place. 1
In addition to the collection of revenue, and of the information
upon which the assessment was made, the collectors, like the zamin-
dars, had originally judicial functions. The judicial system, however,
like the revenue administration, had been the subject of repeated
experiments, and as a result, when Cornwallis arrived, the work of
collecting the revenue was almost wholly divorced from that of
administering justice. Civil justice was administered in local civil
courts (diwanni adalat) presided over by Company's servants; from
them appeal lay to the governor-general in council in the capacity
of judges of the sadr diwanni adalat. For. criminal cases there was
again a separate organisation. Magisterial powers were indeed vested
in the judges of the civil courts; but the power of trial and punishment
lay in district courts for criminal cases, presided over by Indian judges.
Appeal lay from them to the nizamat adalat, now under the 'super-
vision of the governor-general in council. The final power, therefore,
in civil cases directly, and in criminal cases indirectly, lay with the
Supreme Council, but the local courts were almost everywhere outside
the control of the Company's collectors. In most districts then there
were collectors of revenue, judges of the diwanni adalat, and in some
also commercial residents, all of them Company's servants, with
functions in many particulars defined rather by tradition than by
regulation; all of them in the minds of critics at home suspected of
too great concentration on "private interests".
In 1786, Bengal contained all the pieces that were to form the
administrative mosaic of British India, but the pattern had not yet
been decided; and even the collector was not yet established as the
centre-piece. The system was complicated, illogical, wasteful and
suspected of being corrupt. Cornwallis had justly received instruc-
tions to simplify, to purify and to cheapen the administrative system.
>
1 Cf. pp.
## p. 427 (#455) ############################################
CENTRALISATION OF 1781
427
clear; Hastings had an undisputed authority; his adversaries "had
sickened, died and fled". 1 Tenax propositi, if ever man was, Hastings
continued his endeavours to reorganise the collections, and shortly
there was issued
a permanent plan for the administration of the revenue of Bengal and Bihar,
formed the 20th February, 1781, by the Hon'ble the Governor-General and
Council in their Revenue Department. 2
The main alteration involved cannot be described better than in
the words of the introductory minute. After recalling the temporary
nature of the provincial councils, the easy prelude of another per-
manent mode, and referring to the Revenue Board's proceedings of
23 November, 1773, where the board's intention is "methodically
and completely delineated", the alteration is stated to consist sub-
stantially in this : that
all the collections of the provinces should be brought down to the Presidency
and be there administered by a Committee of the most able and experienced
of the covenanted servants of the Company under the immediate inspection of,
and with the opportunity of constant reference for instruction to, the Governor-
General and Council.
"By this plan”, wrote Hastings, “we hope to bring the whole administration
of the revenues to Calcutta, without any intermediate charge or agency, and to
effect a saving of lacs to the Company and to the Zamindars and ryots. " He
added complacently: "Read the plan and the minute introducing it; it will not
discredit me, but the plan will put to shame those who discredit it”.
Shore, after a year's experience of the plan in working, did not
hesitate emphatically to condemn it.
The new scheme 3 consisted of fourteen paragraphs. Its object was
to reduce the expense of the collections and to restore the revenue
of the provinces as far as possible "to its former standard"; an inde-
finite reference. To this end a new committee of the revenue was
ereated consisting of four members assisted by a diwan; the first
members of this committee were David Anderson, John Shore, Samuel
Charters, and Charles Croftes; Ganga Govind Singh was appointed
diwan. The members of this committee took oath to receive "no
lucrative advantage" from their office, except of course, from their
salary which was made up of 2 per cent. on the monthly net receipts *
and divided proportionally among them. The provincial councils and
appeal courts were abolished, and collectors replaced in all the dist-
ricts. The superintendentship of the Khalsa was abolished and its
functions transferred to the Committee of Revenue; the office of the
rai raian was placed under the Supreme Council and its holder was
specifically forbidden to “interfere in the business transacted by the
diwan of the Committee". Finally, the kanungos were reinstated "in
1 Gleig, op. cit. I, 329, 330.
. Governor-General's Proceedings, 20 January, 1781.
3 Colebrooke, op. cit. pp. 213-16.
4 Idem, pp. 215, 216.
## p. 428 (#456) ############################################
428
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
the complete charge and possession of all the functions and powers
which constitutionally appertain to their office”.
The scheme bears all the signs of being prepared in a secretariat.
On paper it possibly appeared extremely reasonable and efficient; in
practice it broke down at every point. The information, valuable as
it was, collected by the commission of 1776, could not, and, by its
authors, was not intended to take the place of that information which
only trained district officers could furnish, but Hastings was bent on
concentration. In 1773, the result of his grouping the various districts
into six divisions under provincial councils resulted in a loss to the
Company's government of much valuable local knowledge and
experience. His plan of 1781 carried concentration still further.
The re-appointment of Collectors appears to suggest an idea of decentra-
lisation. This however was not the case. The collector was denied any inter-
ference with the new settlement of the revenue. The new collectors were
merely figureheads, and the distrust which the council showed in their appoint-
ment could lead to nothing but discouragement. 1
The truth of this comment is exemplified by two quotations
selected at random from the Committee of Revenue's proceedings
for April, 1783. John David Patterson, collector of Rangpur, wrote
on 3 April, 1783, to ask for instructions as to what action he might
take in his district.
There is nothing but confusion; there is no Kanungo to be found, he is
fled the country; the ryots wanting to withhold their payments; the Farmer
seizing everything he can lay his hands upon and swelling up his demands by
every artifice. . . . No pains shall be spared on my part to get at the truth
altho' it is wading through a sea of chicanery on both sides. . . .
On 13 March William Rooke, collector of Purnia, wrote with even
greater detail to the same effect; he reported that the farmer
has repeatedly flogged those who preferred any complaint to me. . . . In the
course of the last ten days a numerous body of ryots from all quarters have
beset me on every side, uncommonly clamorous for justice. Their complaints
exhibit an almost universal disregard and setting aside of their pottahs, an
encrmous increase exacted from them, etc. :
and the letter concludes with a request to be informed of "the degree
of interference which is expected of me by you". The Committee of
Revenue was accustomed to such letters. Within one month of the
establishment of the new scheme it had pointed out that much of
the work of the settlement should be left in detail to the collector.
Shore had ruthlessly exposed, in his minute of 1782, the inefficiency
of the whole scheme. Space unfortunately permits only of a small
quotation from this illuminating criticism, in which he showed that
there could be no check on oppression or extortion, that the real state
.
1 Ascoli, op. cit. pp. 35, 36.
2 Haringtop, op. cit. II, 41-3.
## p. 429 (#457) ############################################
SHORE'S CRITICISM
429
of any district could not be discovered, and that it was impossible
to discriminate truth from falsehood.
I venture to pronounce that the real state of the districts is now less known
and the revenues less understood than in 1774. . . . It is the business of all,
from the ryot to the diwan, to conceal and deceive. With respect to the
Committee of Revenue, it is morally impossible for them to execute the busi-
ness they are entrusted with.
Shore concluded that the committee "with the best intentions and
the best ability and the steadiest application, must after all be a tool
in the hands of their Diwan” and that the system was fundamentally
wrong. Shore's opinion was afterwards endorsed in 1786 when the
Governor-General in Council, in instructing the Committee of
Revenue to appoint collectors for certain districts, observed
from experience we think it past doubt that situated as you are at the Presidency,
you cannot without a local agency secure the regular realisation of the reve-
nues, still less preserve the ryots and other inferior tenants from oppressions. 1
The scheme of 1781 further restored to their old position and
perquisites the sadar kanungos, whose claim to appoint their own
deputies had been correctly contested by the collector of Midnapur,2
wu pointed out that the Committee of Circuit had ordered the
registration of all deputy kanungos as servants of the Company. The
collector of Rangpur in 1784 was similarly restrained from exercising
any control over the deputy kanungos without the express orders of
government. The claim of the kanungos to their arrears of fees was
sanctioned to the extent of over 1,10,000 rupees, and they regained
the full control of their deputies in the districts; their triumph was
complete, and the evil situation exposed by Baber and others in 1772
was restored.
The picture, however, is not entirely black. In 1782 an office,
known as the zamindari daftar, was established for the management
of the estates of minor and female zamindars; it also afforded pro-
tection to zamindars of known incapacity. This was a wise and
beneficent step which anticipated the work of the present court of
wards. The growing influence of officers with district experience can
be seen in the orders issued by the Committee of Revenue to all
collectors in November, 1783, directing them to proceed on tour
throughout their districts in order to form by personal observation
an estimate of the state of the crops and their probable produce for
the current year. In the past, district-officers had in vain sought
permission to tour through their districts, but this had always been
peremptorily refused by the board. The wholesome influence now
exerted on the board by practical men who had served in districts
1 Colebrooke, op. cit. pp. 243-4.
2 Committee of Revenue's proceedings, 12 September, 17 September, 8
November, 1781.
3 Idem, May and September, 1782
## p. 430 (#458) ############################################
430
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
>
was to grow stronger. Anderson, Shore and Charters were men who
had had a real mufassal training, and Croftes had been a member of
the 1776 commission. They knew that "in every pargana throughout
Bengal there are some district usages which cannot clearly be known
at a distance", yet which must be known if the administration is to
be just and efficient. In 1786 a great and beneficial change comes
over the revenue administration of Bengal; it is not too much to
attribute this to the district experience of the members of the com-
mittee appointed in 1781. For five years they laboured under the
evils and difficulties of attempting to administer a system which was
over-centralised, and which placed secretariat theories before district
experience. In 1786 the district officer comes to his own. Before
discussing these changes in detail some important facts must be
briefly noticed. In 1784 Pitt's India Act was passed. Section 39 of
this act directs that the conditions governing the collection of land
revenue shall be “forthwith enquired into and fully investigated” and
that “permanent rules” for the future regulation of the payments and
services due "from the rajas, zemindars and other native land-
holders” will be established. Thus the opinion of which Francis was
the leading advocate, that the zamindar was a landowner, was adopted
by the act and the permanent rules, which Lord Cornwallis was sent
out to put into effect, were, to the great misfortune of the Bengal
cultivators, founded on that assumption. Before the details of the
act could reach India Hastings had resigned his charge; on 8 February,
1735, he delivered over charge to Macpherson and in the same month
sailed for England. His influence on the collection of the land
revenue. in Bengal was unhappy. In 1772 he was mainly responsible
for the defects which marked the quinquennial settlement; 'in 1781,
his further attempt at centralisation reduced the collections to chaos.
He possessed, as has been shown, very little first-hand knowledge of
district revenue work. It has been claimed for him that
he adopted the principle of making a detailed assessment based on a careful
enquiry in each district and . . . he conferred on the raiyats who were the actual
cultivators, the protection of formal contracts.
Neither of these encomiums can be substantiated. The assessment of
1772 was summary and admitted by its authors to have been too high.
The system of putting up the farms to open auction resulted in utterly
fictitious values that were never realised and was soon afterwards
forbidden by the Company. The system of pattahs, or leases, com-
pletely broke down, and failed, then as later, to protect the ryot.
Furthermore, the reinstatement of the kanungos, the abolition of
collectors, the establishment of the provincial diwans, and lastly the
excessive power placed in the hands of the diwan of the Committee
of Revenue, all testify to the incapacity of Hastings in his administra-
.
1
1 Letter from the Burdwan Council, Governor-General's Proceedings; ia
April, 1777.
## p. 431 (#459) ############################################
)
MACPHERSON'S REFORMS
431
tion of the Bengal land revenue; it is not too much to say that in this
respect his achievements compare unfavourably with those of
Muhammad Reza Khan. But Hastings was not a civil servant of the
To judge him, therefore, by the crown standard of a later
date is unjust and unhistorical. The Company's servants were imbued
with one idea : they came to serve the Company first and last; their
intensity of purpose made the East India Company master of India;
and this purpose was not the less strong because it did not profess to
be governed by the restrictions which are attached to an administra-
tive service of the crown. Hastings gave his employers a service and
devotion that was unflinching in its loyalty, that feared no difficulty,
that shrank from no adversary; although he may have failed in his
personal handling of the land revenue, he is entitled to the credit of
having selected some most able officers to deal with this branch of
the administration. Conspicuous among these were Shore, David
Anderson, Samuel Charters, Charles Croftes and James Grant. In
the same week as Hastings handed over charge of the government, a
letter 1 from the court of directors was received calling for an accu-
rate account of the administration at the precise period at which
Hastings resigned his office; a foretaste, had he but known, of the
anxious days ahead.
On 25 April, 1786, the new scheme was published: it spelt
decentralisation. “The division of the province into districts is the
backbone of the whole system of the reforms. ” 2 The collector becomes
a responsible officer, making the settlement and collecting the reve-
nue; the provincial diwans were abolished; and the districts were
reorganised into thirty-five more or less fiscal units, instead of the
previous "series of fiscal divisions over which the earlier collectors
had exercised their doubtful authority";g these thirty-five districts
were reduced in 1787 to twenty-three. These measures of the local
government were reinforced by orders from the court of directors
dated 21 September, 1785, which were published in Calcutta on 12
June, 1786; under them the Committee of Revenue was reconstituted
and officially declared to be the Board of Revenue. The president of
the board was to be a member of the governor-general's council. The
special regulations drawn up for the guidance of the board may be
read in the pages of Harington and Colebrooke. Its duties were those
of controlling and advising the collectors and sanctioning their settle-
ment. On 19 July the office of Chief Saristadar was instituted to bring
the revenue records, hitherto the property of the kanungos, under the
control of government. This measure was long overdue, and had been
urged by the abler district officers since 1772, as being "no less
calculated to protect the great body of the people from oppression
2
1 Committee of Revenue's Proceedings, 14 February, 1785.
2 Ascoli, op. cit. pp. 38-40.
8 Idem.
## p. 432 (#460) ############################################
432
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
than to secure the full and legal right of the Sovereign". James Grant
was selected to be the first Chief Saristadar, being specially chosen
for his interest in and research among the revenue records. For the
first time since the assumption of the diwanni, government had made
a resolute effort to reduce the kanungos to their constitutional position
in the state.
The reforms of 1786 were, therefore, the work of men who desired
to gain the confidence of and to co-operate with the local district
officer. The authors of the reforms were convinced from their own
district experience that the real work of the revenue must be carried
out by trusted officers on the spot; they set themselves to create the
conditions and atmosphere in which those officers could best work.
The period 1765-86 in the administration of the land revenue in
Bengal by the Company's servants is a record of progress from the
employment of untested theories to the establishment of an adminis-
tration based on much solid knowledge. A careful perusal of the
voluminous manuscript proceedings of the Committees of Revenue
during those years reveals a fact too little known, namely, that this
progress was largely the result of unrecognised work by the district
officers of the Company in their own districts where, generally
speaking, they laboured to establish a just and humane collection of
the land revenue. Their advice, based on sound local knowledge, was
too often rejected by their official superiors in Calcutta, by whom,
as well as by the Court of Directors, they were regarded with suspi-
cion and even hostility. Their persistence had its reward; twenty
years after the assumption of the diwanni the first sound and just
administration of the land revenue was established.
NOTE. The reader has doubtless found the various references to boards and
committees of revenue confusing.
In 1769 the Council had delegated its authority in revenue matters to a
"select committee” drawn from its own members. This select committee in
1772 appointed the Committee of Circuit to examine the conditions with a view
to making a new settlement. The Committee of Circuit in August, 1772, pro-
posed that the whole Council should compose a Board of Revenue—this was
established in October, 1772, as the Committee of Revenue, and remained in
existence till 1781, when it was reorganised and composed of members junior
to and subordinate to the Supreme Council, but still retained its name "Com-
mittee of Revenue”. The term “board" is used indifferently by contemporary
writers up to 1781; after 1781 it indicates the Supreme Council when sitting to
hear revenue appeal cases from the Committee of Revenue. The modern Board
of Revenue dates from 1786, when it replaced the second Committee of Revenue.
## p. 433 (#461) ############################################
CHAPTER XXVI
1
THE BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM,
1786-1818
THE Select Committee of 1781 had been directed to find means
for gaining not only "security and advantage" for Britain but "the
happiness of the native inhabitants," and from the discussions of the
years 1781-4 certain maxims of local government had clearly emerged.
There must be a reform of abuses among the Company's servants;
the methods by which they grew rich must be watched; they must
no longer take presents. Their trading activities must no longer
operate to destroy the trade of native merchants and bankers. The
system of monopolies must be restricted. The rights of zamindars
and land-holders must not be superseded in order to increase the
revenues. There must be even-handed justice for Europeans and
Indians alike.
The instructions to Cornwallis embodied the principles thus de-
scribed. In relation to local government three main subjects were
discussed. First, there was the land revenue. It was to be handled
leniently : “a moderate jama, regularly and punctually collected"
was to be preferred to grandiose but unrealised schemes. It was to
be settled “in every practicable instance” with the zamindars. Ulti-
mately the settlement was to be permanent, but at present it was to
be made for ten years. Secondly, there was the question of adminis-
tration. This was to be organised upon a simple and uniform basis.
The frequent changes of recent years had produced injury and
extravagance, and made "steady adherence to almost any one system”
a preferable policy. The higher officers should be Europeans; and
the subordinates Indians, as being more suited to the detailed work
of the province. These higher officers were to be chosen carefully
froni the principal servants of the Company; men "distinguished for
good conduct and abilities, and conversant with the country langu-
ages". They should be adequately paid, partly by salary, partly
by commission. Their districts were to be large; there should not be
more than twenty, or at most twenty-five, in the whole province. In
the -settlement of the revenue, and in the administration of justice,
they were to have wide authority.
Thirdly, there was the judicial system. The instructions contem-
plated the continuance of the existing system of civil justice, under
European judges. In the districts the collectors of revenue were to
be, also, judges of the civil courts; for this would "tend more to
simplicity, energy, justice and economy" In criminal jurisdiction,
too, the existing system was to be maintained. Indian control was to
28
## p. 434 (#462) ############################################
434
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
continue. Although the collector was to enjoy magisterial powers of
arrest, “the power of trial and punishment must on no account be
exercised by any other than the established officers of Mahomedan
judicature". The judicial system indeed was to be informed with.
European ideas of justice, but to be governed by Indian usages. One
point recurred frequently throughout the instructions. There was to
be a general movement for purification and economy. Abuses of all
kinds were to be swept away; peculation was to cease; useless offices
were to be reduced, and the interests of economy and simplicity were
to regulate the various branches of the administrative system. Such
was the task of Cornwallis.
The proposal to make Cornwallis the first instrument of the new
policy was first mooted in 1782 during the administration of 'Shel-
burne;a and his appointment had been one feature of the scheme for
Indian reform proposed by Dundas in the report of the Secret Com-
mittee of 1781. The Fox-North coalition rejected the idea, but Pitt
revived it on their defeat. The negotiations began in April, 1784;3
at the end of the year they seemed to have failed completely; a
renewal in February, 1785, was again a failure; and it was not until
February, 1786, that Cornwallis accepted. Then the union of the
military command with the governor-generalship, and the promise
that the governor-general should be independent of his council,
induced Cornwallis to accept. He finally landed at Calcutta in
September, 1786.
Cornwallis was a man of middle age with extensive military
experience. He had taken part in the campaigns of the Seven Years'
War, and had gained sufficient reputation to secure his appointment
in 1776 to command in America. There, his ultimate failure, after
some brilliant preliminary successes, did not suffice to ruin his career.
Even his opponent, Fox, paid homage to his abilities in 1783, and his
employment under Pitt on the mission of 1785 to Prussia was sufficient
evidence of the trust in which he held him. Of the affairs of India,
he had little knowledge and no experience. He is distinguished as
the first governor-general who did not climb to power from the ranks
of the Company's service. Appointed by the Company, he owed his
nomination to the ministry. His selection was one more evidence of
the new spirit in Indian affairs. It brought India a stage nearer to
incorporation in the overseas empire of Britain.
Inexperience made Cornwallis largely dependent on advisers both
in framing his policy, and, still more, in working it out. The broad
1 The instructions are in a series of dispatches dated 12 April, 1786. They are
to be found in I. O. Records, Despatches to Bengal, vol. XV. One of the most
important of these is printed as Appendix 12 to the Second Report from the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India
Company. Parliamentary Papers, 1810, V, 13.
Cornwallis to Pitt, & November, 1784. Ross, Correspondence, 1, 179.
Ross, op. cit. I, 167.
4 Idem, p. 208.
3
## p. 435 (#463) ############################################
CORNWALLIS'S ADVISERS
435
lines of his action were laid down by the administration; the instruc-
tions of the court of directors gave more detailed guidance. But
much was left necessarily to the men on the spot, and hence the
servants of the Company by their practical knowledge had great
influence on the result: Cornwallis acknowledged plainly his debt
to them. Perhaps the chief of them was John Shore, chosen especially
by the directors to supply the local knowledge which Cornwallis
lacked. “The abilities of Mr. Shore", Cornwallis wrote a month after
his arrival, "and his knowledge in every branch of the business of
this country, and the very high character which he holds in the settle-
ment, render his assistance to me invaluable. ”i And again in 1789
in connection with the revenue settlement, he said, “I consider it as
singularly fortunate that the public could profit from his great ex-
perience and uncommon abilities". 2 In revenue matters Cornwallis
trusted mainly to Shore. He was by far the most experienced of the
Company's servants in this branch, for he had been in its service
since 1769, and had held important revenue offices since 1774. Francis
had brought him to the front, but Hastings also had recognised his
merit.
James Grant is indeed as famous as Shore in connection with the
revenue settlement. But Grant had but little practical experience.
His reputation has come from his wide study of the revenue system,
and the series of published works in which he stated the results of his
learning. He was an expert rather than a man of affairs. As saristadar
he had unrivalled opportunity for studying revenue records, and
Cornwallis retained the office of saristadar till Grant went home in
1789. But in making important decisions he preferred men of experi-
ence to men of learning. After Shore, Cornwallis therefore put
Jonathan Duncan, another experienced collector; and later governor
of Bombay. He was little known in England when Cornwallis arrived,
but "he is held in the highest estimation by every man, both European
and native, in Bengal", wrote Cornwallis in 1787, "and, next to Mr
Shore, was more capable of assisting me, particularly in re
matiers, than any man in this country”. 3 He had, said Cornwallis in
1789, “besides good health . . . knowledge, application, integrity, and
temper", the last “not the least useful”. * Although a junior, he was
recommended by Cornwallis for a seat on the council as early as
1788. 5 And in the last stages of the revenue settlement Cornwallis
found consolation in the approval of Duncan for his differences with
Shore over the question of permanence.
The final decision in that matter was due, however, largely to
Charles Grant. When Dundas decided to support Cornwallis against
enue
")
1 Cornwallis to Dundas, 15 November, 1786. Ross, op. cit. 1, 227.
2 Cornwallis to Court of Directors, 2 August, 1789. Ross, op. cit. I, 545.
3 Cornwallis to Dundas, 14 August, 1787. Ross, op. cit. I, 271.
4 Cornwallis to N. Smith, 9 November, 1789. Ross, op. cit. I, 449.
5 Dundas to Cornwallis, 20 February, 1789. Ross, op. cit. 1, 410-11.
## p. 436 (#464) ############################################
436
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
1
the advice of Shore, it was partly at least owing to the representations
of Charles Grant. He had no personal knowledge of revenue matters,
but he received the greatest share in the confidence of Cornwallis,
and had given him invaluable help during the years 1786-90. When
Grant sailed for home in 1790 Cornwallis recommended Dundas "to
converse with him frequently upon every part of the business of this
Country", and his zeal for the governor-general's interests gave him
considerable influence over Dundas during the years 1790-3. James
Grant (a cousin of Charles),- like Shore and Duncan, specialised on
the revenue side. But Charles Grant was the chief adviser in matters
of trade. His loss "in the commercial line", wrote Cornwallis when
he left India, "is irreparable". He had been secretary to the Board
of Trade in the time of Hastings and had been appointed by the
board in 1781 commercial resident at Malda. He was outstanding
both in experience and integrity. At first, at least, Cornwallis thought
him the only honest man on the commercial side, and trusted very
largely to him in his attempt to reform that branch of the adminis-
tration. In this work Cornwallis had also the help of Charles Stuart,
member of council and president of the Board of Trade (1786-9).
Stuart, however, never gained in the same degree the confidence of
Cornwallis, and he lacked the wide commercial experience of
Charles Grant.
In his judicial work Cornwallis had also an invaluable adviser.
Here the Company's servants could be of but limited use. Cornwallis
took full advantage of their experience in judicial business, but their
experience was relatively small and they lacked expert knowledge.
Some of them-Charles Grant among them-were of great value in
carrying out reforms: but only the judges could help in devising them.
Cornwallis was, therefore, fortunate in the aid of Sir William Jones,
an oriental scholar of reputation unrivalled in his own time, and a
man of great practical ability, who had devoted many years to the
study and practice of the law. In 1783 he had come to India as judge
of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta, and he brought to his
task the zeal of an enthusiast, and the knowledge of an expert. “A
good system of laws" seemed to him the first necessity of India; and,
following the lead of Hastings, he set himself to this end to codify
the existing Hindu and Muhammadan laws. But he realised also the
need for "due administration" and a "well-established peace". He
gave, therefore, full aid to Cornwallis in his reform of the judicial
administration and in the regulation of the police.
Although the policy that Cornwallis came to enforce in 1786 was
new, it was not wholly new. In every direction Cornwallis built
1 Cornwallis to Dundas, 12 February, 1790. Ross, op. cit. I, 480.
2 Firminger (ed. ), Fifth Report . . . on the Affairs of the East India Com-
pany . . . 1812, 1, p. xiv.
:: Ross, op. cit. 1, 306.
.
## p. 437 (#465) ############################################
CORNWALLIS'S CHARACTER
437
on foundations already laid or begun to be laid by his predecessors,
and especially by Hastings. It was the emphasis rather than the
principle that was new; but the principles were now clearly stated,
and the strength of the home government was used to enforce them.
Every aspect of reform was foreshadowed in the work or in the
projects of Hastings, and hence the solidity of the work of Cornwallis.
Yet even when all allowance has been made, much credit must be
given to Cornwallis himself. Certainly no man of genius, he con-
tributed no new ideas to the work he undertook. He was not an
expert like Jones or Grant, nor a man of wide experience like Shore.
He was not a doctrinaire like Francis, nor an inventive genius like
Hastings. He was content, as Hastings had never been, to plead a
command from home as a final cause for decision, and this respect
for authority was his outstanding characteristic. But in spite of this
he possessed great qualities and stood for important principles. Above
all, he was, beyond reproach, upright and honest. He had not to
fear a sudden decline in favour; he had no pettiness of ambition;
he was not a time-server; and he left behind him a tradition of service
a
which was of lasting value in Indian administration. Loyalty and
integrity there had been before, but it was a loyalty to the Company
and an integrity in the Company's affairs. Cornwallis was a public
servant who upheld national and not private traditions. His service
was to the Crown and not to the people over whom he ruled, and he
thus embodied fitly the new spirit of Indian rule.
To this invincible honesty and desire for the public good, he added
a soldier's sense of duty to his superiors. The command of Dundas
or Pitt, or even of the court of directors, was decisive to him. He had
a belief in the possibilities of justice, a faith in the standards by which
conduct would be judged at home. He was determined that these
standards should not be lowered in India, nor overlaid by native
practices. To secure this he gave the higher administrative posts to
Englishmen, and he was always loth to leave real responsibility in
native hands. Yet he was wise enough to see that this was not enough :
these Englishmen must maintain the English standards. They must
be appointed and promoted for merit, not by patronage. In the interests
of this maxim he was prepared to resist the recommendations of all,
even of the Prince Regent or of the directors. Lastly, every deviation
from honesty must be rigorously punished.
This is the system Cornwallis set out to establish, and no doubt
because it was practical rather than ideal, he came much nearer than
most reformers to a realisation of his aims.
а
When Cornwallis landed in Bengal in September, 1786, important
changes in administration had just taken place. More than twenty
years of experiment had gone to make them, and the recent innovations
were rather a further stage in experiment than a final reorganisation.
Much of the work of Cornwallis also was experimental in character,
## p. 438 (#466) ############################################
438
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
but his greatest claim to importance is that he permanently established
some features of administration.
It is necessary to go back more than twenty years to explain the
character of the system with which Cornwallis dealt. The main work
of the Company in India had at one time consisted, like that of any
other company for overseas trade, in import from England and export
home. The import had from early times consisted mainly of specie,
so that the most burdensome duty of the Company's servants was
the provision of the cargoes for England, cargoes for the most part of
raw silk, wool, cotton, or indigo; in other words the “investment". In
the mid-eighteenth century the import of specie ceased : the import of
English goods, never large, was still comparatively small, and the main
source from which the investment was provided—and the local
expenses paid-was the territorial revenue of Bengal.
The result was a dual system of administration. The management
of this revenue and the exercise of responsibilities arising from it, was
one branch of the Company's work; the provision of the investment
the other. Hastings in 1785 had written of the division between “the
general and commercial departments". The Company's servants in
all parts of Bengal wrote to Cornwallis on his arrival describing their
years of experience in the "revenue" or the "commercial line". The
commercial was the senior branch, but the revenue line was already
becoming the more important.
Since 1774 the investment had been under the supervision of the
Board of Trade. Originally a body of eleven members, very imper-
fectly controlled by the Supreme Council, the Board of Trade had been
reorganised in May, 1786. It was now definitely subordinated to the
Supreme Council, and reduced to five members. One of them, the
president, was Charles Stuart, a member of council. Under the board,
the investment was in the hands of the Company's servants stationed
at scattered centres in Bengal. The chief "residents” at the various
stations were responsible to the board for such share of the investment
as had been assigned to them. In dealing with it they had great op-
portunities for good or evil in coming into contact with the people, and
especially they had valuable and recognised facilities for private trade.
From the time of the board's first appointment in 1774 it had been
increasingly the practice to obtain the investment by a series of
contracts. At first these contracts were generally direct with Indian
manufacturers or agents, the residents merely exercising supervision
over them. Since 1778, however, the contracts had been made more
frequently with the Company's servants themselves. So a resident
at one of the Company's stations contracted with the Board of Trade,
and then obtained the goods from the Indian manufacturers at as great
profit as he could get. This system, though a direct breach of their
covenants and of an order of the Company of 1759, was none the less
the general rule. The directors were so complaisant of the breach that
## p. 439 (#467) ############################################
THE EXISTING SYSTEM
439
.
even in their reform proposals of 1786 they did not think hat it was
"necessary to exclude our servants from entering into contracts".
Their criticism was not one of principle, but of practice. The prices
paid were high, the quality of the goods was poor, and there was a
general feeling that corruption and oppression were frequent. The
reform of the Board of Trade and the commercial establishment gene-
rally was one of the first tasks of Cornwallis.
The "general department" was more complicated if less corrupt
in its management of local administration. It had come into existence
slowly during the eighteenth century, and bore still a few marks of its
piecemeal origin, though broadly speaking in 1786 there was one
system for the whole province. It is in this sphere that those frequent
changes had taken place which the directors deprecated. The changes
were really a series of attempts, on the “rule of false” extolled by
Hastings, to reach some satisfactory system for a most complicated and
varied work.
In the “general department”, it may be said without question,
the chief concern was the revenue, and the second the administration
of civil justice. As diwan the Company was responsible for both these
branches of administration. Criminal justice was outside the scope
of the diwan, although the Company here also had obtained a large
measure of control. One of the results of the work of Cornwallis was
that before he left, in 1793, this side of the administrative system had
definitely bifurcated. There was the management of revenue on the
one side: the administration of civil and criminal justice on the other.
But this involved a breach with historical origins, and it was not
achieved until 1793.
In 1786 the chief machinery in the sphere of revenue was the
Board of Revenue. This body was stationed at Calcutta, and beforc
Cornwallis landed, had just undergone change, like the Board of
Trade. In July, 1786, at the instance of the court of directors it had
received an addition to its existing membership. There were to be,
as previously, four members; but a president was added, who must be
a member of the Supreme Council. The president appointed in 1786
was John Shore.
The work of the revenue administration concerned certain main
sources of revenue. By far the most important was the revenue from
land, and the machinery for revenue administration had grown up
mainly in connection with this. There was also, however, the sair
revenue-from customs and excise-and the revenues from the opium
contract and the monopoly of salt. In 1786 the sair revenue was
managed by the same agencies as the revenue from land. The opium
revenue had been managed ever since 1773 by a contract with certain
Indians, who paid a royalty to the Company. In 1785 the contract
had been disposed of to the highest bidder on a four-years' agreement.
This system was, therefore, in force when Cornwallis arrived. In
## p. 440 (#468) ############################################
440
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
connection with the opium, the duties of the Company's servants,
when once the contract had been let, were limited to a general right
of enquiry to prevent the oppression of the cultivators. The monopoly
of salt was another source of revenue. Here again the system in force
was at one time one of contract. But in 1780 Hastings had substituted
a system of European agency. A number of the Company's servants
were employed to superintend the manufacture and sale of salt, the
price being fixed annually by the Supreme Council. Whereas, there-
fore, work in connection with the sair revenue and the opium contract
was undertaken by the same officers as those of the land revenue, a
small separate establishment, responsible directly to the Supreme
Council, dealt with the monopoly of salt.
The land revenue organisation consisted, under the board of
Revenue, of a number of the Company's servants, known already as
collectors. Here also reorganisation had taken place. 1
In addition to the collection of revenue, and of the information
upon which the assessment was made, the collectors, like the zamin-
dars, had originally judicial functions. The judicial system, however,
like the revenue administration, had been the subject of repeated
experiments, and as a result, when Cornwallis arrived, the work of
collecting the revenue was almost wholly divorced from that of
administering justice. Civil justice was administered in local civil
courts (diwanni adalat) presided over by Company's servants; from
them appeal lay to the governor-general in council in the capacity
of judges of the sadr diwanni adalat. For. criminal cases there was
again a separate organisation. Magisterial powers were indeed vested
in the judges of the civil courts; but the power of trial and punishment
lay in district courts for criminal cases, presided over by Indian judges.
Appeal lay from them to the nizamat adalat, now under the 'super-
vision of the governor-general in council. The final power, therefore,
in civil cases directly, and in criminal cases indirectly, lay with the
Supreme Council, but the local courts were almost everywhere outside
the control of the Company's collectors. In most districts then there
were collectors of revenue, judges of the diwanni adalat, and in some
also commercial residents, all of them Company's servants, with
functions in many particulars defined rather by tradition than by
regulation; all of them in the minds of critics at home suspected of
too great concentration on "private interests".
In 1786, Bengal contained all the pieces that were to form the
administrative mosaic of British India, but the pattern had not yet
been decided; and even the collector was not yet established as the
centre-piece. The system was complicated, illogical, wasteful and
suspected of being corrupt. Cornwallis had justly received instruc-
tions to simplify, to purify and to cheapen the administrative system.
>
1 Cf. pp.
