might be doubled, without the necessity of recurring to any other measure than a standing order for the collecting of the tributes in money, as by this means the variety of expenses and complications above enumerated, would be avoided, and the king’s revenue no longer exposed to any other deficiencies than those arising out of the insolvency of the sub-collectors and their sureties, or casual risks, and the trifling charges paid for the conveyance of the money.  If in opposition to this it should be alleged that it would be advisable to except some of the provinces from this general rule, owing to the advantages the government might derive from certain tributes being paid in kind, I do not hesitate to answer that I see no reason whatever why this should be done, because, if, for example, any quality of rigging or sail cloth is annually required, it would be easy to obtain it either by early contracts, or by laying in the articles at the current market price.  Indeed, all supplies which do not rest on this footing, would be to defraud the natives of the fruits of his industry, and in the final result this would be the same as requiring of him double or triple tribute, contrary to the spirit of the law, which unfortunately is too frequently the case under the existing system.

[Preferability of tribute in money.] Considering this affair in another point of view, it would be easy for me to demonstrate, if it were necessary, the mistaken idea that the native is benefited by receiving in kind the amount of the tribute he has to pay, at the low prices marked in the tariff used as a standard, by showing the extortions and brokerage, if I may so term it, to which the practice gives rise on the part of the district collectors.  It will, however, suffice to call the attention of my readers to the smallness of the sum constituting the ordinary tribute, when reduced to money, in order for them to be convinced that it would be superfluous, as well as hazardous, to attempt to point out how this branch might be rendered more productive to the state and at the same time less burdensome to the contributors, more particularly when the rate assessed does not exceed ten reals per year, a sum so small, that generally speaking, no family can be found unable to hoard it up, if they have any inclination so to do.  The prevailing error, however, in this respect, I am confident arises out of a principle very different from the one to which it is usually attributed.  The tributary native is, in fact, disposed to pay the quota assigned to him into the hands of the chief of his clan, in money, in preference to kind; because, independent of the small value at which the articles in kind are rated in the tariff, he is then exposed to no expenses, as he now is for the conveyance of his produce and effects; nor is he liable to so many accidents.  But as the chief of each clan has to deliver in his forty or fifty tributes to the head magistrate, who is answerable for those of the whole province, it is natural for