educational, or other
establishments of manifest public utility, would never have been for
a moment questioned by the people of India, because they would have
all known that it was in accordance with the customs of the country.
If, at the same time that we declared all land liable to resumption,
when not assigned by such authority for such purposes and actually
applied to them, we had declared that all grants by competent
authority registered in due form before the death of the present
incumbents should be liable on their death to the payment to
Government of only a quarter or half the rent arising from them, it
would have been universally hailed as an act of great liberality,
highly calculated to make our reign popular. As it is, we have
admitted the right of former rulers of all descriptions to alienate
in perpetuity the land, the principal source of the revenue of the
state, in favour of their relatives, friends, and favourites, leaving
upon the holders the burthen of proving, at a ruinous cost in fees
and bribes, through court after court, that these alienations had
been made by the authorities we declare competent, before the time
prescribed; and we have thus given rise to an infinite deal of fraud,
perjury, and forgery, and to the opinion, I fear, very generally
prevalent, that we are anxious to take advantage of unavoidable flaws
in the proof required, to trick them out of their lands by tedious
judicial proceedings, while we profess to be desirous that they
should retain them. In this we have done ourselves great
injustice.[8]

Though these lands were often held for many generations under former
Governments, and for the exclusive benefit of the holders, it was
almost always, when they were of any value, in collusion with the
local authorities, who concealed the circumstances from their
sovereign for a certain stipulated sum or share of the rents while
they held office. This of course the holders were always willing to
pay, knowing that no sovereign would hesitate much to resume their
lands, should the circumstance of their holding them for their
private use alone be ever brought to his notice. The local
authorities were, no doubt, always willing to take a moderate share
of the rent, knowing that they would get nothing should the lands be
resumed by the sovereign. Sometimes the lands granted were either at
the time the grant was made, or became soon after, waste and
depopulated, in consequence of invasion or in