Mayor's Court therefore was competent to consider it and ought to interfere. They could not, however, force a slave into a position in which death or the abjuration of Christianity would be the alternative offered to him; nor could they permit the master to lose his property without receiving an equivalent. They therefore decreed in such a case that the slave must be put up to auction, and sold to the highest bidder, and the purchase money paid into Court for his late master's benefit.

But these annoyances were trifling when compared with the actual dangers threatened by the increase of the miscellaneous population. Without any efficient coast-guard or police the island was accessible on all sides to declared enemies and false friends, and with its teeming masses might be mingled the spies or even the troops of a hostile power. All persons were at liberty to carry about with them weapons; and when we consider what crafty and unscrupulous neighbours, what bands of ravening Marathas, were now closing round the place, we marvel that Government reposed so long in security, and did not sooner awake to a sense of their perils arising from the practicability of a surprise or an invasion, supported by an army concealed within the city. "Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions," said Burke, "than ruined by too confident a security." The President and Council may have thought so too; for after looking with indifference upon the great influx of strangers, they suddenly veered round and took precautions which were offensively minute. One measure indeed was of undoubted expediency, inasmuch as it had become necessary to limit the number of followers who, armed with matchlocks, swords, and bucklers, attended upon Natives of distinction, and even when friendly disposed were too apt to indulge the license of undisciplined soldiers. All such were at first prohibited from wearing offensive weapons; but so indignant was Kondajee Munkur, the Commandant of Salsette, when his secretary was required to comply with the new order, that he prepared for hostilities, and threatened to seize all boats from Bombay on which he could lay hands at Callian. A second order was therefore issued, restricting to five the number of such armed attendants.

Six Commissioners were then appointed to make as accurate a census of the inhabitants as was practicable. Two of these had the interior of the town for their field of labour; two more, the environs; and the other two, the district lying about Mahim. No person was permitted to purchase any weapons or munitions of war without obtaining a license from the President and Council. The Apollo and Church gates were closed at sunset, the Bazar gate

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was closed half an hour later. The bells of the Church, the Fort, and the Bazar gate were then tolled, as a signal that strangers must depart, that all inhabitants who were without the walls must return home, and that seamen must repair to their respective vessels. By registering their names, persons residing without the walls might obtain permission to remain in the Fort until halfpast nine, up to which time they might pass through a postern gate near the Mandavie bastion. A guard, consisting of an ensign, two serjeants, two corporals, and thirty European soldiers, was for the first time stationed at the Bazar gate. Certain inhabitants, who had become objects of suspicion, were ordered to leave the town; but it was promised that if they should sustain any loss in consequence, their claims for compensation should be considered. No stranger was permitted on any account to sojourn within the

walls.

Hasty legislation, the fault of inexperienced Governors, found it necessary in this case, as in that of the restrictions on armed followers, to retrace its own steps. An exclusion of strangers was an exclusion of brinjarras, the persons on whom the trade with the interior mainly depended, and who, bringing as they did large sums of money for the purchase of goods, threatened to leave the port unless they could find protection for themselves and their property within the walls. With regard to them therefore an exception was made. Still all strangers were subjected to a close examination, and required to register their places of abode; until, in consequence of the repugnance which Natives entertain to an investigation of their domestic concerns, even this measure was found impracticable.*

The revenues increased in an equal ratio with the population, and the Government were thus enabled to engage in works of improvement. In 1748 copper pice were first coined, being cut by an European acquainted with the art, and who volunteered his services. A dry dock, capable of containing a fifty-gun ship, was constructed, and in a short time a second close behind it; so that the dockyard became the admiration of visitors. The altered state of the Town and Fort may be ascertained from the following description.

Bombay Diary, 10th March 1741; 28th January, 5th June, and 17th December 1742; 3rd June, 23rd July 1743; 17th July 1756; 6th October 1757; 31st May, 4th October 1763; 12th October 1764. Order Book of Government, 1st February 1742. Letters from the Court of Directors, dated 11th March 1742, 88 66 and 71; 13th March 1743, 8 64 and 70; and 20th March 1744, 54. Records of the Mayor's Court, 24th August 1737. Niebuhr's and Ives's Voyages.

The Town covered a space of 739,000 square yards, and was composed chiefly of small houses with gardens or compounds surrounding them. The sanitary condition was so extremely bad, and so much filth was accumulated in the streets, that it became necessary to take the charge of these matters from the hands of a young civilian, to whose orders but little attention was paid, and transfer it to a Member of Council, who bore the undignified title of Town Scavenger. In these dirty precincts nearly all Europeans resided; but the fashion of having country houses was commencing, and, after a few years, every one who had it in his power lived at a distance from his office. The town was encompassed by irregular walls and bastions. On one side was the sea; and round the other sides a wet but very narrow ditch, above which rose seven polygons constructed to five ordinary bastions, two bastions tronqués, and a half-bastion. To the North-West and South were, as now, the Bazar, Church, and Apollo gates, where the ditch was spanned by three bridges; but there were no drawbridges. Within the town was the Castle, containing the Governor's residence, the Council-room, Treasury, an ill-constructed barrack for the artillery, with quarters for sixty or seventy men, another for a hundred and fifty infantry, storehouses, public offices, and a few residences of Military officers and Civilians. The Governor's apartments were highly elevated, and overlooked all the other buildings, but so flimsy was their structure that if the great guns had been frequently fired they would probably have been brought to the ground.

The arrangements without the walls were so bad, that the town was ill-fitted to resist an invasion of a regular army. It was commanded by an eminence, forty-nine and a quarter feet in height, and three hundred and thirty-five yards distant from the Mandavie bastion, called Dungaree hill. To prevent this from falling into an enemy's hands, a small tower had been raised, but it was slightly built, and could easily be approached under cover of houses, hedges, and an old Roman Catholic Church. Indeed the weakness of all the fortifications at once struck the eye of even unscientific men, and it was obvious that the works of defence had little connection or harmony with one another. A rising ground extended from Dungaree hill southward, nearly the whole length of the town, and many quarries had been excavated within a hundred yards of the wall. The burial ground at Mendaim's point was filled with large tombs, which, together with temples, a large village on the south-west side, gardens, banks, holes, trees, and hedges, would have afforded a covered way for an advancing enemy.

Description of the Town.

169

The necessity of making alterations was apparent; but for some time the mood of the Court of Directors was stingy. They complained that the town ditch had cost two hundred and fifty thousand rupees, although the sum was soon repaid them by a duty of one per cent. levied on imports and exports. They warmly commended the minority in Council who had opposed the order for removing all trees and houses which were within point-blank shot of the town wall, and told the majority in severe terms that they ought to have been contented with making a ditch. "When one costly step has been taken," they pettishly write, "our servants have continually fallen into another, wasting our estate in a very expensive and unsatisfactory manner." They considered that the marine establishment and guards posted at the passes would be sufficient protection for Bombay, and deprecated the execution of further projects for improving its defences. Nor did these indignant economists rest contented with censures; they ordered that all members of Council who had not recorded their dissent from the expensive measures should be held incapable of occupying posts of honour in subordinate Factories, and warned them not to expect any favours from the Honourable Court. In consequence of these senseless strictures upon acts of sound policy, all military works were for a while suspended.

But when the improvement of trade, the increase of the revenues, and-which was more than all-fear of French invasion came, the Court found that their President and the majority of his Council had been more sagacious than themselves, and after a year of reflection deliberately revoked all their censures. They became as anxious to improve the defences of the town as they had been before remiss, but, too late, found that having encouraged owners of property to resist the order for the removal of houses and trees, and even to continue building and planting, the expense of forming an esplanade would be increased. For a certain period three hundred thousand rupees were annually expended on the repairs of old, and construction of new, fortifications, the displacement of property, and the indemnification of owners. With reluctance, and after much delay, the large monuments at Mendaim's point were demolished, and in 1760 a new burial ground was opened at Sonapore, although not until 1763 were burials in the old ground positively interdicted. In spite, however, of repeated orders, houses and trees were not removed; for owners had their secret ways of influencing the authorities, and when the records were searched for the original order passed on the sixth of July 1739, it was found to have been surreptitiously erased. It thus

VOL. V.-NO. I.

22

became impossible to prove that it had ever been issued, and the penalties were not enforced for a while against recusant landlords. So late as 1757 seven or eight hundred houses were standing within the proscribed limits; in 1759 a hundred and thirty-five houses, chiefly inhabited by Purvoes, were close to the Apollo gate; and in 1760 houses and trees were standing near the wall at the north end of the town. Major Mace, the Chief Engineer, then proposed that a line of fortification should be constructed between Dungaree Hill and Back Bay, and that within the line dwelling-houses should be erected. The plan would have perInitted an extension of the town, which has ever since been desired, but it was rejected. Still the Government continued to incur what they considered "prodigious expense" on account of the defences, repaying themselves, partly by minutely scrutinising the titles under which houses and lands were held, and where no good titles could be shown, possessing themselves of the property; partly by levying a tax of two shillings in the pound on all produce of land. The inhabitants, as formerly, complained of a land-tax, which they declared to be unprecedented in Bombay. Government, however, would not relinquish it; but as they wanted more money for the fortifications, accommodated themselves so far to the petitioners' tastes, as to saddle also imports and exports with an additional duty of one per cent.*

We are now about to record a discussion which, though in itself of local interest only, involved considerations of universal interest; for the subject of it has in all countries and in all ages caused more popular excitement than any other. In Bombay it called out the latent energies and capacities of civilians, exhibited them for the first time as really studying the science of Government, and for the first time proved that at least some Members of Council had broad views of policy and a fair share of administrative wisdom.

We may remind the reader that the question whether Rome should remain republican or become imperial, depended in a great measure upon the regularity with which she was supplied with When no vessels laden with the staff of life entered the Tiber, no consul or dictator could repress the people's discontent or gain their affections; but when the victories of young Octavius

corn.

*Bombay Diary, 20th August 1751; 23rd September 1755; 10th August, 10th, 19th, and 22nd November 1757; 3rd January 1758; 4th September 1759; 4th March and 4th April 1769; 6th February 1761; 22nd March 1763. Forbes' Oriental Memoirs, chap. viii.