Of the plantation or garden culture, which was of greater value than 

 the other descriptions of produce, no larger portion was demanded from 

 the ryots than one-fourth to one-eighth of the entire yearly crop, 

 according to the additional expense, trouble and time required in 

 bringing such articles to maturity, and the distance and hazard of 

 carrying them to market. The rule with respect to these superior 

 articles, as well as small grains, was to assess them with a fixed money- 

 rent, not liable to fluctuation, as the produce might be more or less. 



Such were the rights of the ryots according to the ancient usage of 

 the country. In consequence, however, of the changes introduced by 

 the Muhammadan conquest, and the many abuses, which later times had 

 established, the share really enjoyed by the ryots was often reduced to 

 a sixth, and but seldom exceeded a fifth ; for instead of the former usage, 

 the expedient of an impost originally founded on a measurement of the 

 arable land, and of additional assessments in proportion to that impost, 

 was generally adopted, and the amount of such additional assessments 

 had no bounds, but those which limited the supposed ability of the 

 husbandman. In those parts of the country where the practice of 

 receiving rents in kind, or by a monied valuation of the actual produce, 

 still obtained, the cultivators were reduced to an equally unfavorable 

 situation by the arbitrary demands and contributions to which they 

 were subjected beyond the stipulated rent. The effects of this unjust 

 system were considerably augmented by the custom which had become 

 common with the zemindars, and to which your Committee have already 

 alluded, of sub-renting their lands to farmers, whom they armed with 

 unrestricted powers of collection, and who were thus enabled. to dis- 

 regard, whenever it suited their purpose, the engagements they entered 

 into with the ryots, besides practising every species of oppression, which 

 an unfeeling motive of self-interest could suggest. If they agreed with 

 the cultivators at the commencement of the year for a rent in money, 

 and the season proved an abundant one, they then insisted on receiving 

 their dues in kind. When they did take their reuts in specie, they 

 hardly ever failed to collect a part of them before the harvest time had 

 arrived and the crops were cut, which reduced the ryots to the neces- 

 sity of borrowing from money-lenders at a heavy interest of 3, 4 and 5 

 per cent, per month, the sums requisite to make good the anticipated 

 payments that were demanded of them. If from calamity or other 

 cause the ryots were the least remiss in the discharge of their rents, 

 the officers of the renters were instantly quartered upon them, and these 

 officers they were obliged to maintain until they might be recalled on 

 the demand being satisfied. It was also a frequent practice with the 

 renters to remove the inhabitants from fertile lands, in order to bestow 

 them on their friends and favourites ; and to oblige the ryots to assist 

 them, when they happened to be farmers, in the tilling of their lands, 

 and to furnish them gratuitously with laborers, bullocks, carts and 

 straw. 



. In addition to the assessment on the lands, or the shares of their 

 produce received from the inhabitants, they were subject to the duties 

 levied on the inland trade, which were collected by the renters under 

 the zemindars. These duties, which went by the name of Sayer, as 

 they extended to grain, to cattle, to salt and all the other necessaries of 

 life passing through the country, and were collected by corrupt, partial, 



