U°2 



ficed the Company's interests; and if, trusting to their own judg- 

 ment, they push it high, contrary to the opinion and inclination 

 of the zemindars, the ryots are led to be dissatisfied, and the 

 whole immediately cry out oppression. These inconveniences 

 appear to us to be inseparable from that mode, nor do we know 

 any way to obviate them. 



We are respectfully, 

 Gentlemen, 



Your very obedient servants, 



Alexander Callander, 

 Baroche, Charles Brome, 



VAth February, 1781. JaMES FORBES, 



John Daton. 



I shall conclude the subject of landed property and assess- 

 ments in India, (which to many may perhaps have been uninte- 

 resting,) with this remark, I am decidedly of opinion, upon my 

 own knowledge, founded on practice as well as theory, that, how- 

 ever sanctioned by long habit and established custom, the mode 

 of assessment by jumma-bundy, in the districts under my cogni- 

 zance, failed, in many essential points, to produce the good effects 

 which might reasonably have been expected, could we have found 

 men of humane character, and responsibility to conduct the busi- 

 ness. A better mode would be, were men of moral conduct and 

 probity to be found, to grant such leases as would give the farmer 

 a secure and permanent interest in the land he cultivates; and 



