ying reflections on my inability to apply it to any useful
purpose. From the confines of Buxar to Benares I was followed and
_fatigued_ by the clamors of the discontented inhabitants. It was what I
expected in a degree, because it is rare that the exercise of authority
should prove satisfactory to all who are the objects of it. The
distresses which were produced by the long-continued drought unavoidably
tended to heighten the general discontent; _yet I have reason to fear
that the cause existed principally in a defective, if not a corrupt and
oppressive administration_. Of a multitude of petitions which were
presented to me, and of which I took minutes, every one that did not
relate to a personal grievance contained the representation of one and
the same species of oppression, which is in its nature of an influence
most fatal to the future cultivation. The practice to which I allude is
this. It is affirmed that the aumils and renters exact from the
proprietors of the actual harvest a large increase in kind on their
stipulated rent: that is, from those who hold their _pottah_ by the
tenure of paying _one half_ of the produce of their crops, either _the
whole_ without subterfuge, or a _large_ proportion of it by a _false
measurement_ or other pretexts; and from those whose engagements are for
a fixed rent _in money_, the half, or a greater proportion, is taken _in
kind_. This is in effect a tax upon the industry of the inhabitants:
since there is scarce a field of grain in the province, _I might say not
one_, which has not been preserved by the incessant labor of the
cultivator, by digging wells for their supply, or watering them from the
wells of masonry with which their country abounds, or from the
neighboring tanks, rivers, and nullahs. The people who imposed on
themselves this voluntary and extraordinary labor, and not unattended
with expense, did it on the expectation of reaping the profits of it;
and it is certain they would not have done it, if they had known that
their rulers, _from whom they were entitled to an indemnification_,
would take from them what they had so hardly earned. If the same
administration continues, and the country shall again labor under a want
of rain, _every field will be abandoned, the revenue fail, and thousands
perish through want of subsistence_: for who will labor for the _sole_
benefit of others, and to make himself the subject of exaction? These
practices are to be imputed to the Naib h