freedom, and fecurity of the individual to be found in the mot republican states, where known fixed laws of immemorial usage: are the highest rational and civil rights of man, at lealt in matters of property.'

Mr. Grant then proceeds to answer Mr. Roufe's objections, in a manner which appears to be fatisfactory.

In the first part of his enquiry our author begins with ftating that, in all the native states of Afia, the fovereign is fole univerfal proprietary lord of the land; and the Ryots, or hufbandmen, hold directly of the prince, by immemorial ufage, as perpetual tenants in capite. To fupport this grand propofition, he refers to Volney for the Turkifh dominions, to Chardin for Perfia, to Bernier for Hindoftan. It may be observed that little learning is fhewn on either fide; and that a mafs of evidence might furely have been collected, from oriental and European writers, on fo important an object. Our limits will not permit us to enter fo wide a field; and a few quotations might rather prejudice than inftruct, by difplaying too confined a view; but the opinion which abides in our memory, after not a little reading to this purpofe, is, that Mr. Grant's doctrine is right, and that feveral exceptions tend to confirm his general rule.

In fpeaking of the contefts concerning the Zemindars, before the courts in India, Mr. Grant gives the following remarks:

A reference to the terms of a Zemindary Sunnud, (patent, or commiffion of appointment) would have fettled the matter in difpute decifively and at once; but it is a curious fact, that neither party, throughout the whole conteft, appear to have thought of producing an inftrument, which neverthelefs was declared to be effential in establishing the rights of a Zemindar. The truth feems to be, if the nature of a Sunnud was then at all known or underflood, that the determination to which it muft infallibly lead, wh tever that might be, would fome way or other militate with the public views and interefts of both parties. For if the Zemindar was found to be an officer, it would be the rain of the whole clafs of individuals under fuch defcription, and prove extremely embarraffing to government; at the fame time, with fuppofed prevention of justice, the expected buliness of the court would be much diminished, on the idea that no fuits could be looked for at the inftance of the Zemindars against their fuperiors in office; and it was already confidered as a hardship, that the lawyers had loft a confiderable part of their practice in confequence of the meatures of the company's adminiftration. On the other hand, if the Zemindar was adjudged to be a proprietary land-holder, in right of his Nancar, greater inconveniences might follow the decifion, as

well

well to the company in the management of their revenues, as to the officers of the court, in being abfolutely and for ever excluded. from the larger advantages to be hoped for, in the recovery by forms of English law, of the private debts due from the Zemindars. The probabilty, however, of the refult, both from the letter and spirit of the terms of a Sunnud, went rather to the former fuppofed cafe, which involved the ruin of the Zemindars; and accordingly, the oppofition to a procefs of inquiry for afcertaining the doubtful right of the court's jurifdiction, arofe on the part of government, which might not be fo fuccefsful in parrying, by the interpretation of a fingle word, pretenfions of proprietorthip, if legally determined.'"

The eastern governments, as Mr. Grant obferves, p. 11, reft public profperity on the eafe, freedom, and perpetual leafes, of millions of husbandmen, rather than on the civil existence of a few hundreds of great intermediate landed proprietors, effential to preferve the conftitution of free ftates. But we thall only further remark on this first part, that it presents a general progreffive view of the fubject, and the different lights in which it has been regarded by the Englifh government in India; and that it is clofed with the following obfervations concerning the policy of granting a right of proprietorship to the Zemindars:

The question to be agitated refolves itfelf neceffarily in policy, as well as in fact, into the four following alternative propofitions or heads of inquiry; namely, 1ft, Whether the Eaft India company fhall affert the validity of their Sunnuds, and avow their right under thofe deeds to the Zemindary of the twenty four pergunnahs of Calcutta, or entirely diveft themfelves of that fpecies of territorial jurifdiction, by difclaiming the authority of fuch grants?-2d, Whether they fhall be just to themselves, their creditors, and the English nation, by realizing the legal expedient acquifition of upwards of one million fterling yearly revenue to the ftate, or fuffer the continuance of the dangerous fyftem of allowing fo much to be collufively embezzled by numberless intermediate agents-be employed in fupporting a refractory spirit, and fometimes open rebellion, ever easy to be inftigated in Hindoftan, by thofe who may have hopes of fharing the benefits of plunder and forfeiture, to be expected on fuppreffing it-or fecretly made use of in fapping the foundations of government by a certain application of the means,, whenever fo afforded, of corrupting individuals in oftenfible minifterial power, or poffeffing invifible influence? 3d. Whether they shall fupport the authority, real advantage and permanency, or permit the gradual decline and ruin of the British fovereignty in India? 4th, and finally, being the most material point in iffue, Whether the Ryots or peafantry,

peafantry, forming the great mafs of the people, are henceforth to be fecured in liberty and property, as ordained by their own laws, and enjoined by a British act of parliament; or, their interefts to be facrificed in a ten years fettlement, or eventually for ever, be wholly given up to the discretion of a few ignorant, mercilefs defpots, as erroneously confidered hereditary proprietary land-holders, as they are truly acknowledged to be in most cafes the vicious tools of their more-depraved irrefponfible dependents; and thus, on the mistaken grounds of the relative fituation, rights and uses of three or four hundred Zemindars, in the conftitution of Indian fociety, the British nation be induced virtually to change the condition of millions of the most useful, inoffenfive, peaceable fubjects in the universe, from a state of actual freedom and legal fecurity in their poffeffions, to that of the bafeft inevitable flavery, and most cruel oppreffion; under the inefficacy of any proposed restraints or formal controul, neceffarily devifed in ignorance, when militating with the wisest and long-established regulations of past experience, and executed in corruption, when effectively left as they muft be, mediately or immediately, to native agency.'

The fecond part contains a difcuffion of the great national queftion of Zemindary rights of property and inheritance in the lands of Bengal, exhibiting all the arguments which have been used for and against their being poffeffed of fuch rights, reafoning on the queftion abftractedly, rather as a matter of fpeculation than of fact.

Mr. Grant admits that the Hindoo princes had property in the lands, before the Mahometan conquefts; but he gives no idea of the extent of their principalities, though effèntial to the queftion. The following paragraph is more to the purpofe.

Some offices are hereditary in all civilifed governments; nor is the Mogul's, in this refpect, an exception. But the office of Zemindar is not, and could never have been properly confidered an inheritance; though a felfth expedient policy, perhaps alone applicable to the ftate of Hindoffan, hath ufually difpofed of it to one of the children or family of the laft occupant; but not fo expediently to his natural heir, by rules of primogeniture, as to his confidential fon, daughter, wife, relation, friend, or nominee, in whofe bands the immediate Zemindary management might chance to fall, together with the fecret treafure, or other perfonal property of the deceased; and who, by fuch acceffion of private wealth, fuperadded to a prefumptive proof of official capacity, in being left or found in the vacant public charge, was, in the ordinary courfe of ministerial favour, always deemed the most cligible perfon for the fucceffion, as the best enabled to liquidate all CRIT. REV. N. AR. (IV.) Jan. 1792. F ballances

1

ballances of rent incurred by the former Zemindar, and moreover pay the largest indefinite demands of royal Pehcub, Soubahdary, Nuzzeranah, and Dewanny fees, neceffarily incident to every new Zemindary Sunnud, in proportion to the known value of the patent employment thus conditionally beflowed.'

At the end is a large Appendix of late papers illustrative of the fubject.

Upon the whole, it appears to us that Mr. Grant has proved his pofition, in an ample and fatisfactory manner.

The Hiftory of the Town of Taunton, in the County of Somerfet. Embellished with Plates. By Joshua Toulmin, A. M. 4to. 75. 6d. Boards. Johnfon. 1791.

WE E have always approved of local hiftories, when they are not permitted to degenerate into frivolous detail; which is the blemish most apt to adhere to productions of this kind. Mr. Toulmin feems to have guarded more against this fault, than feveral of his predeceffors, by copioufly intermixing his narrative with national affairs, and thereby rendering it more interesting. Indeed he might seem to have rather exceeded the juft proportion of the allotment in this respect, were it not, that his judicious obfervations, added to the faithful account of public events, may fupport in the reader a degree of alacrity for the perufal. It cannot, however, be denied, that he fometimes lofes fight of Taunton in purfuing more extenfive objects; though he always returns to it with emolument in point of local information.

In the first chapter, the author describes the ancient state of the town, its fituation, antiquity, and fome other circumftances. There is reafon, he thinks to fuppofe, that Taunton. was not unknown to the Romans. For in the year 1666, two large earthen pitchers, full of medals, were dug up by labourers, in ploughed fields; one at Lawrence Lydeard, and the other within the parish of Stogumber, or Stoke Gomer, adjoining it. This difcovery, he obferves, has been fuppofed to authorize the following conclufions: that, after the conquest of other parts of Britain, the Romans came to the Cangi, in Somerfet: that, having conquered them, in a valcy between Taunton and Withyel, at or near the place now called Conqueft, they ftill continued a legion, or part of ore at leaft, hereabouts, which they paid with fuch money as was found in the above-mentioned pitchers, to prevent any infurrections by land, or invafions by fea: and that these forces, when called home to relieve the empire, diftreffed by the irruptions of the northern nations, buried thefe treafures.'

8

Thefe

Thefe obfervations, he farther remarks, are confirmed by the difcovery of Roman coins, and divers other antiquities, in the foundations of an old house near the castle, in 1643; and by a like incident within the memory of man; when, on pulling down a house in St. James's parish, an old Roman coin was found.

It appears fufficiently clear that Taunton was a place of note in the time of the Saxons. Ina, one of the weft Saxon kings, as early as the year 700, built a caftle here for his refidence; and is faid to have held the firft great council of his kingdom. Our author informs us, that the mode of fuccellion, in the manor of Taunton-Dean, is fingular, and is sometimes productive of very ferious evils to families: for eftates, according to the custom of it, descend to the widow of a man, though a fecond or third wife, to the prejudice of the issue under a prior marriage, who are totally precluded, though the lands were the ancient inheritance of their father. Another peculiarity, with refpect to the right of fucceffion, is that the younger fon inherits before the elder; a custom which this tenure has in common with Borough-English.

In the fecond chapter, the author gives the plan of the town and public structures; St. Mary Magdalen's church; the appointment of the vicarage; St. James's church; with diffenting meeting-houses, the grammar-fchool, and other public buildings.

The third chapter treats of the civil conftitution of the town; the fourth, of its trade, manufactures, and navigation; the fifth, of the political transactions and revolutions, in which Taunton has been the scene of action; and the fixth, of the prefent ftate of the town, with the modern improvements and population.

It appears from the following account, that within a period of nearly half a century, Taunton has experienced a great revolution in its trade. The trade of Taunton, fays our author,

Is now reduced to a low ebb. Houfes in the fuburbs have fallen into ruins and been destroyed: and the number of inhabitants greatly decreased: while the woollen manufactory, in other places, and in the north particularly, has flourished The decay of it, here, must be therefore fought in causes, that have had a local operation. Contested elections, by no means friendly to induftry, must have proved particularly prejudicial to a trade, which, at times, could admit of no delay, in the execution of orders for goods, that must be ready for the failing of thips, and the feafons of foreign fairs. The mifchief of their influence, in this respect, was particularly felt in the continued and violent oppofition of the year 1754. The demand for its goods was then great; but through