loss of inhabitants reckoned at a third, and in many places near one
half of the whole, and that he knew not by what means such a loss could
be recruited in four or five years, and believed it impossible." That,
nevertheless, the revenue was _violently kept up to its former
standard_,--that is, in the two years immediately preceding the
appointment of the said Warren Hastings to the government of Fort
William,--in consequence of which _the remaining two thirds of the
inhabitants were obliged to pay for the lands now left without
cultivation_; and that from the year 1770 to the year 1775 _the country
had languished, and the evil continued enhancing every day_. That the
said Warren Hastings, in a letter to the Secret Committee of the Court
of Directors, dated 1st September, 1772, declared, "that the lands had
suffered unheard-of depopulation by the famine and mortality of 1769;
that the collections, _violently kept up to their former standard_, had
added to the distress of the country, and threatened a general decay of
the revenue, unless immediate remedies were applied to prevent it." That
the said Warren Hastings has declared, "that, by intrusting the
collections to the hereditary zemindars, the people would be treated
with _more tenderness_, the rents more improved, and cultivation more
likely to be encouraged; that _they_ have a perpetual interest in the
country; that _their_ inheritance cannot be removed; that _they_ are the
proprietors; that the lands are _their_ estates, and _their_
inheritance; that, from a long continuance of the lands in their
families, it is to be concluded they have riveted an authority in the
district, acquired an ascendency over the minds of the ryots, and
_ingratiated their affections_; that, from continuing the lands under
the management of those who have a natural and perpetual interest in
their prosperity, solid advantages might be expected to accrue; that the
zemindar would be less liable to failure or deficiencies than the
farmer, from the perpetual interest which the former hath in the