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territories is Tiunevelly. It is a hundred and fifteen miles in length and 

 seventy miles in breadth. A ridge of inaccessible mountains divides 

 it on the north from the wild valleys of Watrap and Outumpollam, 

 belonging to Tippoo Sultan. It stretches to the confines of Madura 

 and Kamnad on the north-east and east, reaches to the sea upon the 

 south, and borders on the west with the Rajahship of Travancore, 

 both terminating near Cape Comorin. Nature has been bountiful to 

 this province. Its surface is generally flat, from the sea-coast till it 

 approaches the mountains on its northern boundary. The rivers by 

 which it is intersected ensure luxuriant crops of rice, and the driest 

 parts yield cotton in abundance. The productions of the neighbouring 

 island of Ceylon would flourish here, and thus render us the rivals of 

 the Dutch in the cinnamon trade ; but the peculiar tenure under which 

 the country has been held, the convulsions it has endured from the 

 first intrusions of the Mussalmans in the course of this century, and the 

 depravity of its rulers, have counteracted the benefits of nature. Even 

 when a native Eajah governed Tinnevelly, the flat and open country 

 only was reduced. This was let for specific sums to great renters, who 

 were invested with despotic powers and harassed the peaceful subjects, 

 while various leaders who possessed considerable territory maintained 

 armed forces and withheld their stipulated tribute on the first appearance 

 of disturbance. These chiefs, as well as their subjects, are called 

 Poligars ; they amount at present to 32, capable of bringing 30,000 

 brave, though undisciplined, troops into the field. They have also 

 fortified towns and strongholds in the mountains, whither they retire 

 in cases of emergency. Besides the territory that these Poligars • 

 possess under the range of hills that form the northern boundary of 

 Tinnevelly, many of them hold ample tracts in the flat and cultivated 

 country. Adverse to industry, they suffer their own possessions to 

 remain waste, while they invade each other and plunder their indus- 

 trious neighbours. Such is the dread of these ravagers, that every 

 district in the province has been forced to purchase their forbearance 

 by enormous contributions." 



Of the renters employed to collect the revenue, Colonel FuUerton 

 gives the following account : — 



" It was not possible for the English G-overnment entirely to repress 

 the misconduct of inferior instruments who are eager to perpetuate 

 oppression and to enforce unusual measures by unprecedented means. 

 The situation of the country rendered it necessary to continue the 

 practice of renting extensive districts to the highest bidder ; although 

 every precaution was adopted to prevent the abuse of power, still the 

 collections could not be enforced unless an unrestrained authority were 

 vested in the renter. His object, too, frequently is to ransack and 

 embezzle that he may go off at last enriched with the spoils of his 

 province. The fact is, that in every part of India where the renters 

 are established, not only the ryot and the husbandman, but the manu- 

 facturer, the artificer, and every other Indian inhabitant, is wholly at 

 the mercy of those ministers of public exaction. 



" The established practice throughout this part of the peninsula has 

 for ages been to allow the farmer one-half of the produce of his crop 

 for the maintenance of his family and the recultivation of the laud, 

 while the oth^r half is appropriated to the sircar. In the richest soils, 



