Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/45

 INTRODUCTORY RETROSPECT 21 thus by Verelst: ‘The violence of Meer Cassim in aceu- mulating treasure and the relaxation of Government in the hands of Meer Jaflier equally contributed to confound all order, and by removing every idea of right, sanctified in some sort the depredations of the hungry collectors. The feeble restraint of fear produced. little effect : while the increasing necessities of a master afforded at least a pretence of an uncontrolled exercise of power throughout every department. Inferior officers employed in the collections were permitted to establish a thousand modes of taxation. Fines were levied at pleasure without regard to justice: and while each felt in his turn the iron rod of oppression, he redoubled these extortions on all beneath him. The war in which Meer Jaflier was engaged against foreign enemies, the struggles of Meer Cassim, which ended with his dis- truction, and the usurpations of foreign traders completed the scene of universal confusion.” ! Thus the zemindars, unable to make any headway against the exorbitant demand and Condition of the
 * oppression of the Nawab, on the one

zemindar. hand, and of the Company’s official Nawabs, on the other, were gradually sinking out of sight lost in obseurity. Those who survived came out of the struggle, impoverished and degraded. These hereditary landlords had held the soil from very ancient times with quasi-feudal powers and virtually ruled the people within their own estates. Inspite of the severe strictures of Ghulam Husain? that the zemindars are, at all times and in all ages, a race incorrigible, it can be easily shown that the ancient zemindars as a class did much for the good of the country. They maintained order, settled disputes, administered justice, and punished erimes ; they encouraged ' Verelst, op. cit. p, 66, 2 Seir Mutagherin iii. p, 204 et seq.