Page:The Marquess Cornwallis and the Consolidation of British Rule.djvu/42

36 sale or transfer of an estate. As long as the revenue was fully and punctually paid, the Zamíndár was no longer subject to temporary or permanent removal from the management of the Zamíndárí. As he had been relieved from the imposition of new or extra cesses, he was bound to abstain from imposing similar taxes on his Ryots. But he was no longer liable to furnish any accounts of receipts and disbursements, except when such accounts were essential to the apportionment of the Public Revenue on the division of an estate between joint-shareholders. Finally, he had been relieved of the charge of the police, and was only expected to aid the regular officials of the Government by preserving the peace and giving information of crimes and heinous offences. And as Harington had previously defined the status of a Zamíndár under the Mughal Government and during the administrations of Clive, Verelst, Cartier, and Hastings, he wound up by a definition applicable to his new position under the Cornwallis Code. He had become 'a landholder, possessing a Zamíndárí estate which is hereditable and transferable by sale, gift, or bequest: subject under all circumstances to the public assessment fixed upon it: entitled, after payment of such assessment, to appropriate any surplus rents or profits which may lawfully be receivable by him from the under-tenants of land in his Zamíndárí or from the improvement and cultivation of untenanted lands; but subject nevertheless to such rules and restrictions as are already