It was Warren Hastings's merit to organize the empire which Clive founded. He was governor or governor-general for thirteen years, a longer period than any of his successors. During that time the British lost the American colonies, but in India their reputation steadily rose to its highest pitch. Within a year Hastings was succeeded by Lord Cornwallis, the first English nobleman of rank who undertook the office of governor-general. His rule lasted from 1786 to 1793, and is celebrated for two events--the introduction of the permanent settlement into Bengal and the second Mysore war. If the foundations of the system of civil administration were laid by Hastings, the superstructure was erected by Cornwallis. It was he who first entrusted criminal jurisdiction to Europeans, and established the Nizamat Sadr Adalat, or appellate court of criminal judicature, at Calcutta; and it was he who separated the functions of collector and judge. The system thus organized in Bengal was afterwards extended to Madras and Bombay, when those presidencies also acquired territorial sovereignty. But the achievement most familiarly associated with the name of Cornwallis is the permanent settlement of the land revenue of Bengal. Up to this time the revenue had been collected pretty much according to the old Mogul system. _Zamindars_, or government farmers, whose office always tended to become hereditary, were recognized as having a right of some sort to collect the revenue from the actual cultivators. But no principle of assessment existed, and the amount actually realized varied greatly from year to year. Hastings had the reputation of bearing hard upon the _zamindars_, and was absorbed in other critical affairs of state or of war. On the whole he seems to have looked to experience, as acquired from a succession of quinquennial settlements, to furnish the standard rate of the future. Francis, on the other hand, Hastings's great rival, deserves the credit of being among the first to advocate a limitation of the state demand in perpetuity. The same view recommended itself to the authorities at home, partly because it would place their finances on a more stable basis, partly because it seemed to identify the _zamindar_ with the more familiar landlord. Accordingly, Cornwallis took out with him in 1787 instructions to introduce a permanent settlement. The process of assessment began in 1789 and terminated in 1791. No attempt was made to measure the fields or calculate the out-turn, as had been done by Akbar, and is now done when occasion requires in the British provinces; but the amount payable was fixed by reference to what had been paid in the past. At first the settlement was called decennial, but in 1793 it was declared permanent for ever. The total assessment amounted to _sikka_ Rs. 26,800,989, or about 2¾ millions sterling. Though Lord Cornwallis carried the scheme into execution, all praise or blame, so far as details are concerned, must belong to Sir John Shore,