Selections from the Minutes and Other Official Writings of the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay: With an Introductory MemoirRichard Bentley and Son, 1884 - 578 pages |
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accounts adopted Ahmednagar allowed appears Apte army assessment Baji Rao battalion Bhagdars Bhils Bombay Brahmins British Government called camp Captain cavalry chiefs circumstances collector Colonel Court cultivated Cutch Deccan decision Deshmukh detachment dispute district Elphin enemy European expenses favour Gaikwar Ghats Girasias Gokhle Gokhle's Governor-General granted Gujarat Highness Highness's Hindu honour horse Inám India insurgents insurrection Jadejas Jahagir justice Kaira Kánoji Kathiawar Khandesh Kolis Konkan Kulkarnis lease letter levied Mahi Kantha Mahoji Mahratta Mamlatdar measures ment Minister Mirás land Mirásdár Mountstuart Elphinstone Muhuzur murder Náik Nana Fadnavis native necessary occasion officers Panchayat Pandharpur Pargana parties Patel Patidars Patil payment persons Peshwa plunder police possession present proceedings Puna punishment Ráhoji Raja Rajah Rajputs Ráv Rayats received rent Resident revenue Rukhás rupees Satara Scindia sent settled Shastri Sindh Talatis Tánáji Tátoji territory tion Trimbakji troops Tukoji Upri village Wattan whole Wudhu
Popular passages
Page 349 - If they were unjust, the party thus harassed naturally concurred with the plaintiff in the wish of a punchayet, and thus an object was obtained which might not have been gained from the indolence of the magistrate. Similar means were employed to extort justice from the ruling power; standing before the residence of the great man, assailing him with clamour, holding up a torch before him by day-light, pouring water without ceasing on the statues of the gods.
Page 274 - The result of those reports and of my own inquiries is, that a large portion of the Ryots are the proprietors of their estates, subject to the payment of a fixed land-tax to Government ; that their property is hereditary and saleable, and they are never dispossessed while they pay their tax...
Page 346 - But with all these defects the Mahratta country flourished, and the people seem to have been exempt from some of the evils which exist under our more perfect government ; there must, therefore, have been some advantages in the system to counterbalance its obvious defects, and most of them appear to me to have originated in one fact, that the Government, although it did little to obtain justice for the people, left them the means of procuring it for themselves.
Page 65 - ... a new class superior to the rest in useful knowledge, but hated and despised by the castes to whom these new attainments would always induce us to prefer them.
Page 102 - Evidently they are not aware of the connection, or all attacks on their ignorance would be as vigorously resisted as if they were on their religion. The only effect of introducing Christianity into our schools would be to sound the alarm, and to warn the Brahmins of the approaching danger.
Page 58 - ... Forrest. A plot was engineered by a few Brahmans to restore the Peshwa. Elphinstone at once showed himself a man of iron and ordered the ringleaders to be blown from the cannon's mouth. The Governor of Bombay, while approving of the action, suggested that Elphinstone should ask for an indemnity, but he refused. " If I have done wrong," he said, " I ought to be punished ; if I have done right, I don't want any act of indemnity." The esteem with which Elphinstone was held by the Indians over whom...
Page 68 - Elphinstone professorships, for the purpose of teaching the natives the English language, and the arts, sciences and literature of Europe, to be held in the first instance by learned men to be invited from Great Britain, until natives of the country shall be found perfectly competent to undertake the office.
Page 59 - The intimate acquaintance of the members with the subject in dispute, and in many cases with the characters of the parties, must have made their decisions frequently correct ; and it was an advantage of incalculable value in that mode of trial that the judges, being drawn from the body of the people, could act on no principles that were not generally understood; a circumstance which, by preventing...
Page 31 - If we had had daylight an hour more not a man would have escaped. We should have had that time if my native infantry had not been panic-struck and got into confusion when the cannonade commenced. What do you think of nearly three entire battalions, who behaved so admirably in the battle of...
Page 310 - BO that prosecutors and witnesses had not long to wait. In their lax system, men knew that if they were right in substance, they . would not be questioned about the form ; and perhaps they likewise knew that if they did not protect themselves, they could not always expect protection from the magistrate, whose business was rather to keep down great...