thousands of cultivators, and accounting to Government for its proper share or revenue.
It has been asserted at several epochs that as Cornwallis declared the Zamíndárs, with whom his Settlement was made, to be the 'proprietors of the soil,' and assured to them in his own language 'the possession of their lands,' and the profits arising from the improvement thereof, he intended to vest, and did vest them, with an absolute and exclusive right of ownership as we understand that term in England. But this is by no means the case. It is quite clear from the language of his Minutes and Letters, as well as from his legislation, that he only recognised in them a limited and not an absolute proprietorship; that he clearly perceived and was prepared to protect the rights and interests of other parties in the soil; and that the terms in which he speaks of Zamíndárs as proprietors must be taken in the Oriental and not in the English sense.
He could not practically override what for centuries had been the common law of the country. Sir George Campbell, who has the advantage of familiarity with land tenures in the Punjab, in the Upper Provinces, in Oudh, and in Bengal, pointed out some years ago that land in India was a possession in which two and more parties had very distinct, separate, and permanent interests; and that much of the confused and erroneous language applied to the subject had arisen from overlooking and disregarding
