Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/128

122 Revenue Regulations and orders against engaging in trade, which you will read, and I promise you that I will make an example of the first offender that I can catch.'

The development of the measure for the Permanent Settlement of Benares Province received the assent of Sir John Shore in March, 1795. From the laws and Regulations of 1795 there is good ground to infer that the measure had been adequately discussed and considered, and that the same prosperous results were looked for in the contentment of the landholders, the spread of agriculture, and the stability of the Government. Indeed, the Regulations of that time applicable to Benares, reveal a somewhat different state of things from what existed certainly in Lower Bengal, and to some extent in Behar; and they bristle with terms, titles, and phrases of a new kind, and provide for rights, interests, and customs of a cognate character to those of the Doáb of Hindustán. It seems that although a high official styled the Resident had been stationed at Benares before the year 1781, he had not been allowed to interfere in any way with the Settlement and collection of the revenue till the year 1787. The Rájá Mahip Náráyan, a nephew of the celebrated Chait Singh, administered the Province, with the aid of Náibs or deputies. In the last-mentioned year this duty was made over to the Resident, and he collected the dues of Government through functionaries styled