hundred and twenty rupees; but the farmers and cultivators do not pay a farthing more—­the difference was taken by the favourite to whom she assigned the duties of collection, and who always took as much as he could get from them, and paid as little as he could to her.[6] The tomb of the old collector stood near my tents, and his son, who came to visit it, told me that he had heard from Gwalior that a new Governor-General was about to arrive,[7] who would probably order the villages to be given back, when he should be made collector of the village, as his father had been.

Had our Government acted by all the rent-free lands in our territories on the same principle, they would have saved themselves a vast deal of expense, trouble, and odium.  The justice of declaring all lands liable to resumption on the death of the present incumbents when not given by competent authority for, and actually applied to, the maintenance of religious, charitable, educational, or other establishments of manifest public utility, would never have been for a moment questioned by the people of India, because they would have all known that it was in accordance with the customs of the country.  If, at the same time that we declared all land liable to resumption, when not assigned by such authority for such purposes and actually applied to them, we had declared that all grants by competent authority registered in due form before the death of the present incumbents should be liable on their death to the payment to Government of only a quarter or half the rent arising from them, it would have been universally hailed as an act of great liberality, highly calculated to make our reign popular.  As it is, we have admitted the right of former rulers of all descriptions to alienate in perpetuity the land, the principal source of the revenue of the state, in favour of their relatives, friends, and favourites, leaving upon the holders the burthen of proving, at a ruinous cost in fees and bribes, through court after court, that these alienations had been made by the authorities we declare competent, before the time prescribed; and we have thus given rise to an infinite deal of fraud, perjury, and forgery, and to the opinion, I fear, very generally prevalent, that we are anxious to take advantage of unavoidable flaws in the proof required, to trick them out of their lands by tedious judicial proceedings, while we profess to be desirous that they should retain them.  In this we have done ourselves great injustice.[8]

Though these lands were often held for many generations under former Governments, and for the exclusive benefit of the holders, it was almost always, when they were of any value, in collusion with the local authorities, who concealed the circumstances from their sovereign for a certain stipulated sum or share of the rents while they held office.  This of course the holders were always willing to pay, knowing that no sovereign would hesitate much to resume their lands, should