Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/41

Rh terms for keeping the peace within his jurisdiction, hut apparently allowed to apprehend only and deliver over to a Musalmán magistrate for trial and punishment — this is, in abstract, my present idea of a Zamíndár under the Mughal constitution and practice.'

This was the opinion of the young revenue officer, who had been brought up in the school of Hastings, and twenty-eight years afterwards, with his ripe experience, he saw no reason to alter his language. But he then explains the changes in the Zamíndár's situation and privileges which the Permanent Settlement had introduced. Glancing at the reservation to Government of the power to legislate for the protection of dependent Tálukdárs, Ryots, and other cultivators, he remarks that the Zamíndár was now at liberty to appropriate to his own use the difference between the portion of the produce which was the right of Government, and his own private rent. This share was already estimated to be treble what it had been before 1793, and looking to this increment and advantage, Harington was prepared to recognise the Zamíndárs, Tálukdárs, and all landholders, of whatever denomination, as 'proprietors in a general sense.'

In other not unimportant particulars their position was secured and improved. Heirs and successors were no longer called on to take out a sanad, or deed of investiture, in ratification of their succession. They were not expected to pay the former Peshkash or the Nazaráná. No permission was needed for the