THE HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF MALACCA. 731) 
“ The proprietors acknowledge also that in cases of emergency 
(if any such should occur) they are bound to provide for the peace 
of their respective estates by embodying a police from among their 
servants.” 
2nd. As between the proprietors and the tenants: 
“ The tenant settles on an estate by the verbal permission of the 
proprietor. There is no express law as to the rate of rent payable, 
but the custom in general is for the landlord to receive 10 per 
cent upon all the produce of the soil. 
“ During the Dutch administration the inhabitants were not per¬ 
mitted to cultivate rice, and the produce of estates consisted chiefly 
of fruit, wood and charcoal. 
“ A tenant may sell transfer, devise See, the portion of land he 
may cultivate and he is free to cultivate the soil to any extent. 
“ The landholder possesses no right to establish his own mode of 
assessment or revenue whether as to time or place or rate. In the 
collection of these tithes some proprietors farm out their revenues 
and others receive them through their agent.” 
On these statements it was observed by Mr. Fullarton, then go¬ 
vernor of the Straits settlement. 
f< These descriptions are quite inconsistent with each other. The 
tenant it appears cannot settle on an estate without the consent of 
the proprietor ; it appears also that there is no settled law for esta¬ 
blishment of any particular rent, but the custom is 10 per cent, but 
of what nature is this custom ? Is it custom and prescription usage 
strong as law, or merely the usual practice of the proprietors to re¬ 
ceive a 10th. because they cannot or will not exert themselves to 
get more. If the tenant cannot settle on an estate without the con¬ 
sent of the proprietor, it follows that the latter may make his own 
terms as to rent and payment. It is said that the landholder pos¬ 
sesses no right to establish his own modes of assesment whether as 
to time or place, but this is quite irreconcileable with the title and 
power of a proprietor and with the admitted one of preventing any 
one from settling on the estate without his consent. The paragraph 
which follows is alike inconsistent and irreconcileable with the title 
of proprietor, vizt. that the tenant may sell, transfer, demise &c, the 
portions of land he may cultivate, and that he may cultivate the 
soil (that is in fact the soil of another, the proprietor) to any extent. 
“ The very unsettled and undetermined state of relative rights —■ 
questions that in other ports of India have excited endless enquiry, 
