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ment with accusations of injustice and bad faith, 

 in lieu of those outpourings of gratitude and sub- 

 stantial donations which might have been looked 

 for. Behind such facts as these, the confident 

 expectations of Lord Cornwallis vanish into the 

 thinnest of thin air; and with them before us, I would 

 venture to ask, what solid ground have we on which 

 to rest the shadow of a hope, that the future of the 

 present will bear better fruit ? 

 I would add, however, that, though in clearly 

 stating the case as between Government and 

 its subjects, the peculiarity of the situation com- 

 pels me to lay bare facts in all their nakedness, 

 I do not desire to be understood as blaming 

 the Zemindars of Bengal in the degree the un- 

 measured terms here used would seem to imply. 

 In viewing the case I have looked at it from 

 an English stand-point, for the special benefit 

 of Englishmen unacquainted with the circum- 

 stances of India and its people. It falls to 

 my lot officially to translate into the native 

 languages for publication, the returns of the public 

 works annually executed by private individuals in 

 Bengal, and I am fully aware that, in their own 

 small way, the Zemindars have always done some- 

 thing towards building wells, tanks, school-houses, 

 making village roads &c. The Bengali Zemindar has 

 acted in accordance with the dictates of his unedu- 

 cated mind and his narrowed intellect, and possibly 



