213 



for the only crop it was desired to grow, could not 

 be procured but in the most limited quantities, for 

 the supply did not equal a tenth part of the wants 

 of those already in possession of the field. Instead, 

 therefore, of there being the slightest necessity for 

 attracting Europeans to those wastes from whence 

 the cry came, by the concession demanded, the 

 necessity, if necessity there was at all, lay entirely 

 the other way, and consisted, rather, in warning 

 an excited public against too hurriedly rushing into 

 a field which, looking at the circumstances of the 

 cultivation in progress, was over-occupied already ; 

 or placing such checks as would serve to keep the; 

 immigration of Europeans within the limits pre- 

 scribed by the circumstances of the Province, and 

 the cultivation in question. Indeed it became 

 ridiculous to argue the necessity part of the sub^ 

 ject, after the offer to purchase the fee-simple, 

 had been made to the settlers at Madras, and 

 declined \ 



I think that the agitation for the sale of waste lands 

 in fee-simple was mischievous, because the demand,) 

 including in its scope the whole of the immense wastes 

 of India, and involving the abandonment by the 



Etate of its claim for revenue from these lands for all 

 me to come, required more cautious legislation than 

 ould a simple request for the removal of the objec- 

 tionable clauses of existing rules, and hence it fol- 

 lowed that the rules under which it has been thought. 



