In compliance with these instructions, the object of which was embraced with zeal by the local government, to whom his lordship entrusted the administration of the Island, a commission was appointed, under the able direction of Colonel Mackenzie, to prosecute statistic inquiries; the results of which, as corrected and extended by subsequent surveys, will frequently appear in the tables and statistic accounts of this work. The nature of the landed tenure, and the demand made upon agriculture, in all the shapes of rent and taxes, were ascertained; the extortions practised by the Dutch officers, the native princes, the regents, and the Chinese, were disclosed; the rights of all classes, by law or usage, investigated; the state of the population, the quantity and value of cultivated land, of forests, of plantations of cotton and coffee, the quantity of live stock, and other resources of the country subject to colonial administration, inquired into and made known. The result of these inquiries, with regard to landed tenure, I have given above; and, as it will be seen, it was such as opposed the rights of no intermediate class between the local government and the beneficial changes it contemplated in behalf of the great body of the people. After attaining the requisite information, the course which expediency, justice, and political wisdom pointed out was not doubtful, and coincided (as in most cases it will be found to do) with the track which enlightened benevolence, and a zealous desire to promote the happiness of the people would dictate. The peasant was subject to gross oppression and undefined exaction: our object was to remove his oppressor, and to limit demand to a fixed and reasonable rate of contribution. He was liable to restraints on the freedom of inland trade, to personal services and forced contingents: our object was to commute them all for a fixed and well-known contribution. The exertions of his industry were reluctant and languid, because he had little or no interest in its fruits: our object was to encourage that industry, by connecting its exertions with the promotion of his own individual welfare and prosperity. Capital could not be immediately created, nor agricultural skill acquired; but by giving the cultivator a security, that whatever he accumulated would be for his own benefit, and whatever improvement he made, he or his family might enjoy it, a motive was held out to him to exert himself in the road to attain both. Leases, or contracts for fixed rents for terms of years, in the commencement, and eventually in perpetuity, seemed to be the only mode of satisfying the cultivator, that he would not be liable, as formerly, to yearly undefined demands; while freedom from all taxes but an assessment on his crop, or rather a fixed sum in commutation thereof, would leave him at full liberty to devote the whole of his attention and labour to render his land as productive as possible.