19S 



XXX 



ty are likewise to be registered ; all these arrangements are highly 

 proper. 



160. You have prepared a " Regulation for declaring the rights 

 of the Government over the lands within the territories of Malacca 

 and providing for the due collection of the Government share of 

 the produce thereof." This Regulation, consisting of thirteen para- 

 graphs, you have transmitted for the sanction of the home autho- 

 rities. We have already separately expressed to you our appro- 

 bation of most of the arrangements to which this Ordinauce in in- 

 tended to give effect, We have now to add, that it is worded with 

 remarkable clearness and precision and the rights of Government 

 and of the occupiers are exactly and at the same time concisely 

 defined. We, therefore, in conformity with the provisions of the 

 Act 53 Geo. Ill Chap. 155, hereby sanction, with the approbation 

 of the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, the draft as a Regula- 

 tion which you have submitted to us, and of which we have already 

 transcribed the title; and we direct this Regulation be promulgated 

 and enforced, on the receipt of this despatch. 



A. M. BOND, 



Assistant Resident. 



Extract from a Minute by Mr. Fullerton, dated the 

 29th January, 1828. 



In my minute of the 5th July, 1827, I entered into the consi- 

 deration of the land tenures, but rather to record the apparent 

 contradiction in terms or incompatibility of a supposed ownership of 

 land with a right of levying no more than 10 per cent, of the pro- 

 duce, or without that of forbidding the occupancy of land except un- 

 der such term as might be agreed on between parties. The main and 

 express object of that minute was to excite further enquiries and draw 

 forth further information on the subject apparently little understood . 

 Mr. Lewis has now made a further report, and has submitted two 

 documents out of the records which lend to throw much light on 

 the whole subject. I allude to the order issued by the Dutch Gov- 

 ernment in the year 1819 referring to one of 1773. These documents 

 render clear the terms and understanding under which the persons 

 denominated proprietors hold their lands. It expressly interdicts 

 and prohibits proprietors from levying as a tax from occupants of land 



