That the property of the lands of Bengal is, according to the laws and customs of that country, an inheritable property, and that it is, with few exceptions; vested in certain natives, called _zemindars_, or landholders, under whom other natives, called _talookdars_ and _ryots_, hold certain subordinate rights of property or occupancy in the said lands. That the said natives are Hindoos, and that their _rights and privileges are grounded upon the possession of regular grants, a long series of family succession, and fair purchase_. That it appears that Bengal has been under the dominion of the Mogul, and subject to a Mahomedan government, for above two hundred years. That, while the Mogul government was in its vigor, the property of zemindars was _held sacred_, and that, either by voluntary grant from the said Mogul or by composition with him, the native Hindoos were left in the free, quiet, and undisturbed possession of their lands, on the single condition of paying a fixed, certain, and unalterable revenue, or quit-rent, to the Mogul government. That this revenue, or quit-rent, was called the _aussil jumma_, or _original ground-rent_, of the provinces, and was not increased from the time when it was first settled in 1573 to 1740, when the regular and effective Mogul government ended. That, from that time to 1765, invasions, usurpations, and various revolutions took place in the government of Bengal, in consequence of which the country was considerably reduced and impoverished, when the East India Company received from the present Mogul emperor, Shah Allum, a grant of the _dewanny_, or collection of the revenues. That about the year 1770 the provinces of Bengal and Bahar were visited with a dreadful famine and mortality, by which at least one third of the inhabitants perished. That Warren Hastings, Esquire, has declared, "that he had always heard the loss of inhabitants reckoned at a third, and in many places near one half of the whole, and that he knew not by what means such a loss could be recruited in four or five years, and believed it impossible." That, nevertheless, the revenue was _violently kept up to its former standard_,--that is, in the two years immediately preceding the appointment of the said Warren Hastings to the government of Fort William,--in consequence of which _the remaining two thirds of the inhabitants were obliged to pay for the lands now left without cultivation_; and that from the year 1770 to the year 1775 _the country had languished, and the evil continued enhancing every day_. That the said Warren Hastings, in a letter to the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors, dated 1st September, 1772, declared, "that the lands had suffered unheard-of depopulation by the famine and mortality of 1769; that the collections, _violently kept up to their former standard_, had added to the distress of the country, and threatened a general decay of the revenue, unless immediate remedies were applied to prevent it." That