As to the native government and the administration of justice, it subsisted in a poor, tottering manner for some years.  In the year 1781 a total revolution took place in that establishment.  In one of the usual freaks of legislation of the Council of Bengal, the whole criminal jurisdiction of these courts, called the Phoujdary Judicature, exercised till then by the principal Mussulmen, was in one day, without notice, without consultation with the magistrates or the people there, and without communication with the Directors or Ministers here, totally subverted.  A new institution took place, by which this jurisdiction was divided between certain English servants of the Company and the Gentoo zemindars of the country, the latter of whom never petitioned for it, nor, for aught that appears, ever desired this boon.  But its natural use was made of it:  it was made a pretence for new extortions of money.

The natives had, however, one consolation in the ruin of their judicature:  they soon saw that it fared no better with the English government itself.  That, too, after destroying every other, came to its period.  This revolution may well be rated for a most daring act, even among the extraordinary things that have been doing in Bengal since our unhappy acquisition of the means of so much mischief.

An establishment of English government for civil justice, and for the collection of revenue, was planned and executed by the President and Council of Bengal, subject to the pleasure of the Directors, in the year 1772.  According to this plan, the country was divided into six districts, or provinces.  In each of these was established a provincial council, which administered the revenue; and of that council, one member, by monthly rotation, presided in the courts of civil resort, with an appeal to the council of the province, and thence to Calcutta.  In this system (whether in other respects good or evil) there were some capital advantages.  There was, in the very number of persons in each provincial council, authority, communication, mutual check, and control.  They were obliged, on their minutes of consultation, to enter their reasons and dissents; so that a man of diligence, of research, and tolerable sagacity, sitting in London, might, from these materials, be enabled to form some judgment of the spirit of what was going on on the furthest banks of the Ganges and Burrampooter.

The Court of Directors so far ratified this establishment, (which was consonant enough to their general plan of government,) that they gave precise orders that no alteration should be made in it without their consent.  So far from being apprised of any design against this constitution, they had reason to conceive that on trial it had been more and more approved by their Council-General, at least by the Governor-General, who had planned it.  At the time of the revolution, the Council-General was nominally in two persons, virtually in one.  At that time measures of an arduous and critical nature