THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN ALIGARH 35 



As Mr. McConaghey says of Mainpuri : ' Although 

 heavy balances did accrue, still the collection of the 

 revenue seems not to have been attended with that 

 insuperable difficulty which characterized the first 

 four years of our rule.' As years advanced balances 

 became less common, and though, to the humane and 

 scientific Settlement officers who succeeded, these 

 early assessments appeared excessive, it is clear that 

 the people must for some reason have been in a better 

 position to pay them than at the commencement of 

 the century. 



The second test of the severity of the revenue 

 demand is whether landed property was constantly 

 changing hands. This question was examined by 

 Mr. W. H. Smith with considerable care with regard 

 to Aligarh, and the case of this district may be 

 accepted as typical of the province. In 181 1 Mr. 

 Newnham gave a very unfavourable account of the 

 condition of the people in this district, and as late as 

 183 1 Mr. Stirling described it in even darker colours.' 

 * Almost all the villages in this district,' he wrote, 

 'have been mortgaged, farmed, or given over to 

 creditors. A few intriguing, dishonest, and avaricious 

 men have by indirect means possessed themselves of 

 the greater portion of the most flourishing estates in 

 this district. These changes of property have upset 

 all kinds of village rights and the individual claims of 

 cultivators, among whom tenfold more distress has 

 been occasioned than has been experienced in any 

 district of which I have had charge.' This is the 

 'wretched account of the district' to which Mr. W. H. 

 Smith refers, and his examination of this charge is 

 worth quoting. After showing how cultivation had 

 extended, he goes on to deny * that almost all the 

 villages were alienated up to 1831,' and he gives details 

 and names to show that the old proprietors had in 

 general maintained their lands, and he concludes 

 by saying ; ' Nowhere can I trace any signs of a 



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