"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 pottahs by the tenure of paying one half of the
produce of their crops, either the whole without a subterfuge, or a
large proportion of it by 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.
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