36 INDIGO. 



Letter to it miffht be extremely desirable to promote the 



Bengal, . 



3 Feb. 1796. Cultivation of indigo in this zemindarry, yet the 

 object is of little importance, compared with the 

 ease and happiness of the natives. But although, 

 from motives of policy and in conformity with a 

 general regulation for the other provinces, the Eu- 

 ropean speculators in this article at Benares have 

 been very properly laid under restrictions as to the 

 quantity of land they should respectively occupy, 

 the cultivation and manufacture of indigo must 

 be considered as an object of national importance. 

 We were sorry, therefore, to observe, that not- 

 withstanding it would be the means of affording 

 provision for a number of the most indigent and 

 helpless part of the community, as well as bene- 

 ficial to the country at large, there appeared a 

 general disinclination to forward its cultivation, 

 w hich led Mr. Duncan at first to doubt whether 

 the ryots could ever be induced to undertake, to 

 any useful extent, this cultivation, which appears 

 to have been unknown to, and unpractised by the 

 general body of Benares husbandmen. 



36. We are pleased, however, to find by a letter 

 from Mr. Duncan of the 21st May 1794, entered 

 on your subsequent proceedings of the 26th Sep- 

 tember, that he has prevailed upon Mehendy Ally 

 Khan so to amend his original proposal for the 

 cultivation of a considerable quantity of land at 

 reduced rates, as to induce the European manu- 

 facturers to accept thereof, and that he thinks the 



plan 



