Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/50

 adjunct in the administration of justice. Others despaired of restoring efficiency and honesty to institutions which had been demoralized by the long anarchy. Even those who agreed that the judgement-seat must be left to those who held the sword of State, were by no means at one as to the appropriate procedure. The uncertainties and the bewildering bulk of the Regulations were a common matter of complaint. Considering the paucity of capable officials, anything more than a perfunctory compliance with the technical requirements was plainly impossible. The non-regulation system for the newly acquired territories was the happy compromise. This form of administration may be regarded as having first taken definite shape under Lord Amherst. When the Bombay districts first became British, military officers—for want of civilians—were placed at the head of each. Bishop Heber, visiting that Presidency in 1824-5, speaks with enthusiasm of the simplicity and despatch resulting. The principles of the law administered were the same, the application less hampered by form, or by nice distinctions. The plan was adopted subsequently in the Central Provinces—in Tenasserim, in Arakan, in Assam, and has in fact become the normal system for all districts newly brought under our rule. The conventional picture of the Company's servant sitting under a palm-tree, and dealing out patriarchal equity to all comers, was about this time occasionally realized in fact, even in the North-West Provinces. But it was never so common as the picture-books