SOAS Research Online

Abstract

In this thesis I have traced the influence of the Home Authorities on the land-revenue and judicial administration in the Bengal Presidency during the governments of Lord Minto and Lord Hastings. It is a subject which has been little understood or investigated, important though it is, as covering a formative epoch which subjected the old system to criticism and began to build a new. Short sketches of administration have, indeed, been given by Mill and Wilson in their history of India; but these sketches trace neither the origin,nor the motives,nor the effects of the policy pursued, except in a superficial manner. Moreover, they hardly do any justice to the opinions, endeavours and influence of the Home Authorities. I have, therefore, based my work largely on original records so carefully preserved at the India Office. As will be seen, the reorganization at the Board's Office in 1807, the defects engendered by the Cornwallis system, the conservatism of the Bengal Government, the increasing activities in administrative matters manifested at the India House, these, and many more things, gradually induced the Home Authorities to reform if not to transform the very basis of the existing system. In order to bring out the full significance of this, as also to throw light on a little known but allied topic, I have shown what the Home Grovernment was, its composition, constitution and working. I wish to direct the attention of the students of Indian History to the caution, perseverance and zeal with which the Home Authorities studied the intricacies of Indian administration and prescribed remedies. That they sometimes stumbled was only natural; that they ever pushed their way to progress, in face of infinite difficulty and opposition, was beyond doubt admirable.