114 



THE PREDECESSORS OF THE 



Princes of India in alliance with the said Governments 

 respectively, or against any person who, at the time when the 

 cause of action should have arisen, should have "been employed 

 by, or been directly or indirectly in the service of, the East 

 India Company or any of the subjects of His Majesty, his 

 heirs or successors ; and also full power to hear and determine 

 all suits and actions that might be brought against the 

 inhabitants of Madras and Bombay respectively ; but their 

 inheritance and succession to lands, rents, and goods, and all 

 matters of contract and dealing between party and party, were 

 to be determined, in the case of Mahomedans by the laws and 

 usages of the Mahomedans, and where the parties were Gentoos 

 by the laws and usages of the Gentoos, or by such laws and 

 usages as the same would have been determined by if the suit 

 had been brought in a Native Court, and where one of the 

 parties should be a Mahomedan or Grentoo by the laws and 

 usages of the defendant. 



In pursuance of this Act the Court of. the Eecorder of 

 Madras was established by Letters Patent under the Great 

 Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at "Westminster the 20th 

 day of February 1798 (38 Geo. Ill) and published at Madras 

 on the 1st of November following. The records of the 

 Mayor's Court thereupon became records of the new Court, 

 which took up the causes depending at the time in the Mayor's 

 Court and proceeded to their final adjudication. It superseded 

 in like manner the judicial powers till then vested in the 

 Governor in Council, whether as a Criminal Court or as exer- 

 cising an appellate jurisdiction from the Mayor's Court, with 

 a like transfer of the records of each. The appeals depend- 

 ing before the Governor in Council devolved upon the Court 

 of the Recorder. The Mayor's Court not having had jurisdic- 

 tion over the natives, except when by their contracts and 

 engagements with one another they had agreed to submit to 

 it, a Cutcherry had been established by the Governor in 



