The History of Lieutenant-Governor the Honourable HENRY WELLESLEY's Administration of the CEDED PROVINCES in OUDE.

THE historical chapter of our last volume brought down the history of Oude to the treaty concluded at Lucknow, November 10th, 1801. We now lay before our readers the principal occurrences that took place in the provinces, ceded to the honourable the East India company by that treaty, with the measures adopted for the settlement of the country, under British authority, during the administration of lieutenant-governor the honourable Henry Wellesley.

The peculiar character of the people of the ceded provinces, and the obstruction that might be naturally expected to the final settlement of the country, under the British government, from the vizier and his dependents, required the constant presence of an active and vigilant authority, until the foundation of the new arrangements should be firmly established.

The discretion, firmness, and judgment, evinced by the honourable Henry Wellesley, in conducting, to a happy termination, the treaty for ceding those provinces to the British government, and the experience which he had acquired, as a commissioner, in the settlement of Mysore, of which the court of Directors of the honourable the East India company had expressed their public approbation,-combined with the authority which he derived from his near connection, 'and confidential intercourse, with the governor-general, Marquis Wellesley, rendered him the fittest person for the temporary, but arduous and responsible charge, of presiding over the provisional government of the ceded districts, and of planning, and carrying into effect, an efficient system of administration, in all its details, with the aid of such of the company's civil servants as were best qualified, by talent and experience, to co-operate with him, in the quality of commissioners.

On the day that the governor-general ratified the treaty of Lucknow, (November 14th, 1801) he notified to Mr. Wellesley his intention of appointing him lieutenant-governor of the ceded provinces of Oude; n the 21st, the nawaub vizier issued the necessary letters to the b aumils,

VOL. 9.

aumils, to consider themselves accountable to the British government, for the future jummat of the ceded districts; and, on the 23d, Mr. Wellesley quitted Lucknow, to make preparations for undertaking his charge.

A sense of public duty alone could induce Mr. Wellesley to exchange the confidential intercourse, and comparative ease of his official situation of private secretary to the governor-general, for the arduous and perplexing one of chief magistrate, in an unsettled and discontented province; to combat the prejudice of established customs; the artifice and treachery of the vizier and his dependants; and the responsibility attached to so important a trust, as well in INDIA as in EUROPE.

Mr. J. Leslie, A. Seton, and J. Fombelle, three of the company's civil servants, were the commissioners appointed to assist the governorgeneral in council, and the lieutenant-governor, in the formation of laws and regulations, adapted to the state and condition of the ceded provinces, and to superintend the administration of those laws over a great extent of country, and over a race of people unaccustomed to regular order or law, and habituated to suffer and to commit the utmost excesses of violence and oppression. To six collectors, and their registers, was committed the charge of ascertaining the resources of the country, and of settling a system of land revenue, in all its details, and collecting that revenue, with the arduous office of judge and magistrate over this turbulent people.

The state of the currency of a recently-acquired territory is an object of the first consequence to the administration, whether considered as one of the mediums of commercial intercourse, or the means of defraying the current expenses of the state. The oppressive and ruinous course pursued, under Assoph ul Dowla, and the present nawaub vizier, drained the country of specie; the efforts of the industrious were paralized; commerce, though not entirely ruined, was nearly at a stand; the revenues of the state, arising as well from land, as the taxes, were collected with the utmost difficulty, and the soul of commercial speculation, mutual confidence, was unknown. Mints had long been established in several cities of the ceded provinces, from

Collectors of the revenue. ↑ Land Rent. At the express desire of Mr. Wellesley, his salary, as lieuteuant-governor, was fixed precisely on the same scale with that established by the court of directors, for the office of private secretary to the governer-general.

from whence coin of various degrees of purity were issued, to the great injury of those unacquainted with the intrinsic value of each, by affording the Shrofs* the means of imposing on the ignorant in the course of exchange, and circulating the same coins again

The lieutenant-governor restricted the establishment of mints, to the cities of Allahabad and Bareilly, and fixed the standard value of the currency; bankers and merchants brought in large quantities of bullion for coinage; commercial speculations were set on foot, and mutual confidence revived. There is no country in which the business of money exchanging is better understood than in India: the trade of a shrof, or banker, is reduced to a science, the knowledge and practice of which affords employment to thousands.

The city of Bareilly was fixed on for the residence of the lieutenantgovernor and commissioners; but as it did not contain any buildings convertible into dwelling houses for their accommodation, they were under the necessity of residing in tents, in the vicinity of the city, during a considerable part of the most inclement season of the year, and were subjected to considerable expense, on account of the public ser vice, for tents, carriages, and cattle; for the removal of their family establishments, from former places of residence to Bareilly; extra servants, for public and domestic purposes; erecting habitations, the principal article of which were only to be had from the presidency, or the company's intermediate stations; and the common necessaries of life being dearer at Bareilly than in the lower provinces.

The lieutenant-governor, at the desire of the governor-general in council, reported on the extraordinary allowances, independent of their salary, which was fixed on the same scale of proportion as officers of similar rank in the lower provinces, to which the commissioners, and other officers, appointed to the ceded provinces, were justly entitled, on account of these extra expenses. To commissioners 1200, collectors 600, assistants 200, registers 200, sicca rupees per month, from the date of their respective appointments to the end of the current year.

During the Moghul government, when trade and manufactures were entirely neglected, the revenue of the ceded provinces, arising almost entirely from land, amounted to two crores, and fifty lacs of rupees; and this country, when ceded to the British government, produced only

• Bankers. ↑ Upwards of three millions s'erling.

only one crore, thirty-five lacs, twenty-three thousand four hundred and seventy-four rupees, including the land revenue and taxes.

The cause of this defalcation in the revenue was to be found in the vicious administration of the late governments; it was, therefore, reasonable to expect that a contrary course of proceeding would produce a progressive increase of revenue. In the first settlement of the jumma, on an equitable scale, between the company and the farmers, it was necessary to pay scrupulous attention to the assets of the country, so as not to continue the oppressive and ruinous system of the late administrations, by extending the period to a distant time in the exhausted districts; or, by settling at the present value, to relinquish the just claims of the company to a proportional share in the increased assets to be reasonably expected in the ensuing years.

A discretionary power was vested in the collectors, for forming settlements upon a progressively increasing jumma, in all cases where the actual state of the cultivation, and the means possessed by the cultivators of increasing their assets, might appear to render it desirable: and, in all cases, where it could be done, the village settlements were made under their immediate inspection, after obtaining the best information upon the dorols, or estimates received from the tehsuldars. In other cases, much of the year having elapsed, the settlements were concluded on the same terms as those of the last year. But a triennial settlement was fixed on by the lieutenant-governor, as the most equitable jumma for the districts to which these considerations did not apply.

The collection of sayrt was found to be expensive to government, and highly vexatious and oppresive to the merchants and traders; while the receipt, on account of government, bore a very inconsiderable proportion to the amount levied by the duty: the sayr was therefore abolished, and a regular custom-house duty established in the ceded provinces, by which there was a vast saving to the state, in the reduction of sayr establishments; and it also produced an immediate increase of

commerce.

The line of frontier of the West quarter was intersected by the TALOOKS OF POWIA, and other pergunnah's of the vizier's reserved territory, containing upwards of twenty villages; which formed a Peninsula in the ceded province of Etawah, surrounded by the company's pergunnahs,

* Head men of villages. + Transit duties.

pergunnahs, Meer Yahoo, Ghyswa, and Ghurwarra, in two of which (Bussura and Burkut) was an organized banditti, of upwards of 400 men, who had regular agents constituted for the receipt and disposal of their plunder, and for other purposes connected with their lawless profession. Their vicinity enabled them to commit depredations on the company's subjects, and escape into the nawaub vizier's reserved territory, where the company's officers had not authority to pursue them; which gave the police officers a fair pretext for conniving at their practices, by which they shared in the booty.

There was no way to put an effectual stop to these malpractices, but by subjecting this lawless district to the British government: application was made to the nawaub vizier to exchange it for lands situated in such place as should mutually accommodate both states; to which his excellency immediately consented, and this hitherto incorrigible district was soon reduced to obedience..

The trade of the river Jumna was formerly very extensive, but the insecurity of the navigation, from the hordes of banditti that infested its banks, in the ceded provinces, and the oppressive and arbitrary exactions during the late administrations, reduced it so much, that the present duties scarcely paid the expense of collection.

To restore and secure this source of revenue, guard boats were established at different places, and a considerable addition made to the Sebundy corps, in the Doab, for enabling the collectors of Etawah and Allahabad to furnish guards. Encouragement was held forth to the importers of cotton, and other merchandize, from the Mahratta country, to convey their property through the company's possessions, by this river; and the resident at Etawah was directed, by the lieutenantgovernor, to transport the investment, he was charged to provide for the company, by the same conveyance.

When the project for opening the navigation of the Jumna became generally known, the city of Allahabad, which is situated on the confluence of that river with the Ganges, is the natural emporium of the western and northern trade, and is also the resort of pilgrims from all parts of Hindustan, as well for trade as devotion, assumed the appearance of a flourishing commercial capital. In a short time upwards of 600 warehouses were erected by merchants from Benares, and the reserved dominions of the vizier; a wide field for commercial speculation opened, for furnishing the company's investments of piece goods,

sugar,