India Under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company

by James Talboys Wheeler

Services of Hastings.

Warren Hastings was undoubtedly a man of great abilities and marvellous energy. His services to the East India Company, and to British interests in India, are beyond all calculation. But he was exposed to great temptation in times when public virtue was less exalted than it has been in the present generation, and he was hedged around with enemies who were spiteful and unscrupulous enough to misrepresent any and every transaction. His errors were those of his time, but his genius is stamped for ever on the history of British India. His misdeeds cannot be entirely overlooked, but he paid a bitter penalty. For many months he was threatened by the proceedings which culminated in his trial at Westminster Hall. Eventually he was acquitted of all charges, but his trial was protracted over seven long years and ruined his private fortunes and public career.

Merits as an administrator.

After the lapse of a hundred years, the flaws in the character of Warren Hastings may be condoned in consideration of his merits as an administrator. He found the Bengal provinces in chaos, and introduced light and order. He converted British traders into revenue collectors, magistrates, and judges, but he established Courts of Appeal to supervise their proceedings; and if his magistrates and judges had no legal training, they were at any rate Britons with a national sense of justice, and their decisions were infinitely better than those of Bengal zemindars, without law, or justice, or control. Warren Hastings kept a watchful eye on British interests as well as on the welfare of the people under his charge. He sent a mission to Tibet, which shows his anxiety for the extension of trade. He recorded a touching tribute to the memory of Augustus Cleveland, a young Bengal civilian who had done much to humanise and elevate the rude Sonthals of the Rajmahal hills, which sufficiently proves his sympathy with the well-being of the masses. Altogether, if Warren Hastings is not so free from blame as he is represented by his friends, he certainly was not so black as he has been painted by his enemies.

Lord Cornwallis, 1786-93.

§15. In 1786 Lord Cornwallis, an independent peer, was appointed Governor-General. This event marks a change in British rule. Lord Cornwallis was the first British peer, and the first Englishman not in the service of the East India Company, who was appointed to the post of Governor-General. He carried out two measures which have left their mark in history, namely, the perpetual settlement with the Bengal zemindars, and the reform of the judicial system.

Perpetual settlement.

The settlement with the Bengal zemindars was still awaiting a decision. Lord Cornwallis was anxious to arrange the land revenue of the Bengal provinces on English lines. He abandoned the yearly leases, and concluded leases for ten years, with the view of eventually declaring the settlement to be perpetual. Mr. John Shore, a Bengal civilian, pressed for a preliminary inquiry into the rights of the ryots, for the purpose of fixing the rents. But Lord Cornwallis was opposed to any further delay. In 1793 he proclaimed that the ten years settlement would be perpetual; that the tenant-rights of ryots would be left to future inquiry; and that henceforth the Bengal zemindars would be invested with the proprietary rights enjoyed by English landlords, so long as they paid the fixed yearly revenue to Government and respected all existing rights of ryots and cultivators.

Judicial reforms.

The judicial system introduced by Warren Hastings was modified by Lord Cornwallis. The British collector, as already seen, was also magistrate and civil judge. Lord Cornwallis decided that a collector ought to have no judicial duties under which he might be called on to adjudicate in revenue questions. Accordingly a regulation was passed under which the duties of revenue collector were separated from those of magistrate and judge, and the magistrate and judge was to be the head of the district, whilst the revenue collector was his subordinate. It is difficult to understand the merits of this measure. Since then the two offices have been sometimes united and sometimes separated. Eventually the two offices of magistrate and collector were united in the same person.