did it in the expectation of reaping the profits of it; and it is certain that they would not have done it, if they had known that their rulers, from whom they were entitled to an indemnification, would take from them what they had so hardly earned.  If the same administration continues, and the country shall again labor under a want of the natural rains, every field will be abandoned, the revenue fail, and thousands perish, through the want of subsistence:  for who will labor for the sole benefit of others, and to make himself the subject of vexation?  These practices are not to be imputed to the aumils employed in the districts, but to the Naib himself.  The avowed principle on which he acts, and which he acknowledged to myself, is, that the whole sum fixed for the revenue of the province must be collected, and that for this purpose the deficiency arising in places where the crops have failed, or which have been left uncultivated, must be supplied from the resources of others, where the soil has been better suited to the season, or the industry of the cultivators more successfully exerted:  a principle which, however specious and plausible it may at first appear, certainly tends to the most pernicious and destructive consequences.  If this declaration of the Naib had been made only to myself, I might have doubted my construction of it; but it was repeated by him to Mr. Anderson, who understood it exactly in the same sense.  In the management of the customs, the conduct of the Naib, or of the officers under him, was forced also upon my attention.  The exorbitant rates exacted by an arbitrary valuation of the goods, the practice of exacting duties twice on the same goods, first from the seller and afterwards from the buyer, and the vexatious disputes and delays drawn on the merchants by these oppressions, were loudly complained of; and some instances of this kind were said to exist at the very time when I was in Benares.  Under such circumstances, we are not to wonder, if the merchants of foreign countries are discouraged from resorting to Benares, and if the commerce of that province should annually decay.

“Other evils, or imputed evils, have accidentally come to my knowledge, which I will not now particularize, as I hope that with the assistance of the Resident they may be in part corrected:  one, however, I must mention, because it has been verified by my own observation, and is of that kind which reflects an unmerited reproach on our general and national character.  When I was at Buxar, the Resident at my desire enjoined the Naib to appoint creditable people to every town through which our route lay, to persuade and encourage the inhabitants to remain in their houses, promising to give them guards as I approached, and they required it for their protection; and that he might perceive how earnest I was for his observance of this precaution, (which I am certain was faithfully delivered,) I repeated it to him in person, and