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rumour was so prevalent, that many persons left the place for a time. On sending out a party to ascertain the fact, no traces of either boats or followers were found. Some reports were also current, that the individual above alluded to, had been tampering with the Mugh Levy, to put him in possession of the town, but further inquiry failed to establish the fact in a satisfactory manner. In order, however, to prevent any further misconstruction of the objects of a probably harmless individual, the senior commissioner judged it expedient to direct his departure, and he was sent in the Sophia to Chittagong. This measure seems to have had the effect of allaying every apprehension. The experience of the past, and the frequency of aggression and domestic tumult, have inspired the Mughs of Arracan with a degree of credulous timidity, which it will take some time, and the continuance of regular government, to dissipate.'

On this, 'The Bengal Hurkaru,' of the 24th, offers the following remarks:

<"The Government Gazette," of Thursday, renders an account of the settlement recently made for Arracan. According to this account the revenue amounts to above twenty lacs of rupees a-year, without any imposts on the export or import produce. It consists, therefore, we may conclude, of a land revenue, and of the produce of the salt monopoly. The settlement is said to have been made with the zemindars, upon whom our Government is described as having bestowed a perpetual right of possession in the land, including a right of alienation, sale, bequest, or gift. In short, the Government has raised this class of persons into a landed aristocracy, or has done what Lord Cornwallis did in Bengal between thirty and forty years ago, with this only exception, that the assessment is not perpetual but fluctuating. Under the Burman Government, the state was held to be the only proprietor of the land, and the cultivators are said to have lived" in a state of insecurity fatal to the existence of agricultural prosperity and population."

With great deference to the respectable and, indeed, talented individuals who have made the settlement for Arracan, we are firmly of opinion that their whole arrangement is founded upon erroneous principles. In the name of patience and good sense, what have such hard words as zemindar, tashkheesee, and talookdar, to do with a British fiscal arrangement in a new country? What is the Persian language to the Mughs? Or why inflict upon them the institutions of the Mohammedan conquerors of the Hindoos, which are just as strange to them, and as inapplicable to their situation, as those of the ancient Etruscans, or more ancient Egyptians.

By the new arrangement, it appears that the police, and other local officers of the old Government, have, by the fiat of the Commissioners, been declared proprietors of the land to the exclusion of the cultivators, the virtual proprietors, even by the showing of the

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• Government Gazette itself. We fear, upon examination, it will, in fact be found, that they have done the very thing which has of late years been so much deprecated by the home authorities, not to say by philosophical and speculative writers. In the language of Mr. Mill, when the sovereign power generously sacrificed its own proprietary rights, it should have bestowed those rights upon those "upon whom the motives to improvement which property gives would have operated with a force incomparably greater than that with which they could operate upon any other class of men; they ought to have been bestowed upon those from whom alone in every country the principal improvements in agriculture must be derived, the immediate cultivators of the soil."—" Instead of doing this, the ryots," in the language of the same writer," have been handed over to the zemindars in gross." This is the very catastrophe which the historian of British India emphatically denounces as a great opportunity lost; if the great opportunity has occurred once more, we ask why this great opportunity has been again lost?"

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From the unimproved state of Arracan, it is certain that the land-tax imposed is not a tax upon rent but upon produce, and that it must consequently enhance the cost of every necessary of life, and therefore arrest the progress of improvement and the increase of population. This will be easily seen by comparing the area with the estimated population. The former appears be about 15,000 miles, and the latter about one hundred thousand inhabitants. This gives something less than seven inhabitants to a square mile, instead of 200, 300, and even as far as 600 in some parts of Bengal. In short, not above a sixth or seventh part cultivable area of the country is yet inhabited or cultivated. Legitimate rent cannot therefore have commenced in such a country. Its condition can bear no analogy to that of the densely-peopled provinces of Hindoostan, and its system of taxation should therefore be founded upon totally different principles.' i 1 Bu bo douef

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The amount of revenue is described to be double the charges Government. If this be the case, it is quite clear that taxation is carried to twice the length it ought to be. It is probable, however, that this will be found in the sequel as unintentional exaggeration. If it were all land-revenue, or the Arracanese paid in any shape the whole sum, the tax would amount, upon man, woman, and child, to twenty rupees a-head. The semi-savages never could pay so much. It is not improbable that the salt monopoly is really looked to as the principal source of this revenue, and that the wealthier inhabitants of Bengal are speculated upon as the principal contributors to the alleged revenue of Arracan. Such a speculation, however, must próceed in fallacious reasoning. If the quantity of salt brought to Bengal be increased, the monopoly profit upon the old supply will necessarily diminish. If, indeed, salt can be bought cheaper, and of a better quality, from Arracan than any where else, both the Government and the people will be gainers. It is pretty certain, however,

that this cannot be the case. The muddy shores and humid climate of Arracan, it will hardly be insisted, will ever produce salt in price and quality capable of competing with that of the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, countries peculiarly fitted for the manufacture of the salt. From the latter countries, nay, even from the Persian Gulph, or from Liverpool, the Government may have as much salt as they think proper by the most trifling relaxation of the monopoly. According to this view, the expectation of deriving revenue from a salt monopoly in Arracan, is quite chimerical.'.

The progress of the Governor-General in his tour is detailed in the following narrative:

We noticed some time since the arrival of the Right Honourable the Governor-General at Subathoo. We have since been favoured with the following particulars of his journey thither.

The Governor-General quitted Meerut on the 12th of March, and proceeding by the route of Moruffeznugger, reached Seharunpore on the 17th, where his Lordship halted a day to receive the visits of a few Native chiefs and principal zemindars, and to inspect the Honourable Company's botanical garden at that station.

The camp crossed the Jumna at Booria Ghat on the 20th of March, and marched from thence through the protected Sikh country, by a very interesting route, skirting the base of the lower range of hills, to the Pinjore valley; where his Lordship halted from the 27th to the 30th of March, to make the necessary preparations for ascending the mountains.

Durbars were held at Booria, Naraingurb, Munny-Majra, and Pinjore, for the reception of the numerous Sikh Sirdars, and other petty chieftains of the Hindoo or Musulman persuasion, amongst whom the protected territory, between the Jumna and Sutledge, is parcelled out. The four principal Sikh Rajahs of Putiala, Nabeh, Jund, and Kythul, with the hill Rajahs of Hindoor and Belaspore, were introducted at the two latter places.

1 The Pinjore Doon belongs to the Rajah of Putiala, who has there a beautiful garden, founded originally by a nobleman of the Emperor Akbar's court. The grounds are laid out in a succession of terraces, and command an abundant supply of water from the neighbouring hills, which is carried in a variety of canals and small cascades throughout the whole extent of the garden, putting in play, at the same time, an immense number of jets d'eau.

It having been arranged that the Governor-General should return the visit of Maharaja Kurm Sinh of Patiala at this place, the Rajah came to his Lordship's camp, to conduct him to the place of interview, where a suite of remarkably handsome tents were pitched, lined with richly embroidered scarlet cloth, and having the ground covered with red velvet, and shawl carpets. After the usual cure

monies had been gone through, fifty-one trays, two elephants and six horses, were presented, in return for the khelaat, with which the Rajah had been honoured by the Governor-General.

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The Governor-General commenced the ascent of the mountains from Bar, on the morning of the 31st March, and reached Subathoo on the evening of that day, where the 1st Nusseeree battalion, commanded by Captain Kennedy, was drawn up to receive his Lordship, and the usual salute was fired in honour of the occasion. Amherst and family occupied the house of Captain Kennedy, the commanding officer, and local political assistant, during their stay at Subathoo. On the 1st April, his Lordship held a durbar for the reception of the following hill chiefs, who had assembled at Subathoo, to pay their respects to the Governor-General, viz: the Ranas of Keonthul, Boghul, Baghat, Khotar, Comharsain, Bhujjee, Mulog, Dhamee, Konyar, Bulsun, Beja, Ootraj and Kotk'haee. These chiefs brought with them nuzzers of birds, hill poneys, and articles, the peculiar produce of their respective estates, and each received khelaats suited to their rank and couditions. The following morning, his Lordship reviewed the 1st Nusseeree battalion, and expressed himself highly gratified with the exhibition.

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'The Governor-General reached Simla on the evening of the 5th April, at which place excellent arrangements have been made for the accommodation of his Lordship and suite, during the hot months. The bungalos at Simla are situated at an elevation of 7200 feet above the level of the sea, and our accounts speak in the highest terms of the excellence of the climate, the delightful temperature, and grandeur of the surrounding scenery. On the 23d April, the thermometer did not stand higher than 62°, in a room with a sunny aspect; and in the beginning of the month, when the weather was stormy, the mercury, we understand, was often as low as 52° and 54° throughout the day.

'The Governor-General received the visits of the Rajahs of Gurhwal and Bissahur, and Rana of Joobul, on the 14th of April: a complimentary mission from Maharaja Runjeet Singh, of Lahore, had reached Subathoo, and was expected to arrive at Simla on the 25th.'

The following paragraphs are from the same Paper; the first from its Editor, the succeeding ones among its selections from other Indian Papers :

In the "Bull" of yesterday, a hint is thrown out for the suppres sion of all future public meetings, for so we must understand the hope which that journal expresses, that a regulation will be framed to place" the right of British subjects to hold such assemblies on a better defined basis than that on which it now rests." On what bet ter basis can the right of meeting be placed than the law of the land? If, indeed, it were a disputed right, or had been held to

be taken away by the construction of some unintelligible statute, then, indeed, not a regulation, but an explanatory statute might be required; but what object there can be in defining an undisputed privilege of Englishmen, except to limit it, or take it away altogether, is quite incomprehensible.

'We have been favoured with a letter from Chittagong, which quotes a letter from Akyab, adverting to transactions that gave rise some alarm at that place.

'According to a report that for a time obtained some credence, several war-boats, loaded with small arms, had, for some time back, been lurking among the creeks in the neighbourhood of Akyab.

'A person who had come from Ava, and was represented to be a near relation to the Rajah of Arracan, was reported to have been invited by the principal Mughs to head an expedition, the object of which was to wrest the province from the British. It was farther said, that the Mugh Levy were tampered with, but unsuccessfully. 'An officer in charge of the flotilla, after a fruitless search of three days in the Burmah war-boats reported to be lurking near Akyab, returned without observing or hearing of any trace of them. The individual alluded to as the supposed leader of the plot, had quitted Akyab by order of the Commissioner; his presence there at the juncture when a good deal of (in all probability) causeless anxiety was afloat, being deemed inexpedient.'

'A mutiny of a serious nature broke out on the 6th instant, at the Cavalry Station of Mominabad, in the Nizam's territories. This information is conveyed in letters from Hyderabad. The commanding officer received one-and-twenty wounds, three of which were from pistol-shots, the rest sabre-cuts. The other officers had narrow escapes. Fortunately, the mutiny was confined to about half a squadron of one regiment, and they were immediately charged by the rest of their own regiment, and by another which was drawn up on parade. The mutineers were cut to pieces, with the exception of five or six who were taken prisoners, and four or five who escaped.* It is said that the cause of this unfortunate affair was some innovation as to shaving. The surviving mutineers who were taken were to be tried immediately. The commanding officer, at the date of the letters from Hyderabad, was still alive, but thought to be in a very precarious state. Since writing the above, we have heard of Major Davies's death.'

'Two more very extensive fires took place last night; one apparently in the Burra Bazar, and another, of very great magnitude, in the direction of Chowringhee, was raging at two o'clock this morning."

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One of the Native Newspapers of Bengal had been discontinued for want of adequate support; on which The Government Gazette'. had endeavoured to force the inference, that the Natives of India

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