The East India Vade-Mecum, Volume 1 (of 2): or, complete guide to gentlemen intended for the civil, military, or naval service of the East India Company.Williamson, Thomas
History
The East India Vade-Mecum, Volume 1 (of 2): or, complete guide to gentlemen intended for the civil, military, or naval service of the East India Company.
Williamson, Thomas
India -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
In consideration of the important services rendered to the Company by
their military and naval officers and surgeons, as also by their
chaplains, the Company have established certain rates of income, under
the general terms of full-pay, half-pay, and pension, for such of them
as may retire from their service: those rates, together with all the
regulations in force, will be found in the ‘EAST INDIA DIRECTORY’,
before referred to.
No British subject, not born in India, can claim the right of residing
within the Company’s jurisdiction; which extends from the Cape of Good
Hope, easterly, towards Cape Horn; including all the Indian Seas, and
the great Peninsula of Asia, so far as the British flag is displayed,
with the exception, however, of the Island of Ceylon, on which the whole
establishment appertains to the Crown, though generally some of the
Madras troops, or even a portion of the Bengal army, may be seen doing
duty there, as auxiliaries.
Necessity has imposed very arbitrary rules on the conduct of government
abroad; none but persons whose political conduct and opinions are
decidedly unexceptionable being permitted to reside within the Company’s
territories. Every European inhabitant is registered, and furnished with
a licence, renewable at times, or subject to be cancelled by the Supreme
Council. Such is the determination supported against whatever may tend,
however obliquely, towards colonization, that, in Calcutta, though
purchases may be made of landed property, secured by _pottahs_, that
correspond generally with our title-deeds, yet there does not appear to
be any actual claim to the soil. This does not create any diffidence on
the part of the purchaser, who, provided there be no latent mortgage,
&c. always holds the property as a fee-simple. This rule does not,
indeed, properly extend beyond the Maharrattah Ditch, which formerly
circumscribed the town on the land side, making nearly a semi-circle,
whose radius might be more than a mile and a half: beyond that ancient
barrier; which in old times was found a considerable protection against
the incursions of the Maharrattah horse: though pottahs may perhaps
exist, their validity would not bear the test of litigation. The
Company, it is true, have in various instances made grants of lands, but
always under such terms as precluded any claim to property in the soil,
as a permanent, independent, and paramount tenure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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