Chapter II: The Administration

I. THE FORM OF ADMINISTRATION

THE word administration denotes the organisation and methods by which a State endeavours to attain its objects, and conse- quently the nature of the administration at any given time depends in great measure on the objects in view. In the India of Akbar’s time, two objects were of paramount import- ance: one was the assessment and collection of sufficient revenue, the other was the supply of adequate contingents for the army, and these two primary functions were largely in the hands of a single set of officers, who also discharged most of the remaining duties, and in particular were responsible for the preservation of internal peace. The administration was thus of the centralised or unified type which is still familiar in India, though its nature is now to some extent obscured by the multiplication of departments, the partial separation which has been effected between judicial and executive functions, and the introduction of the rudiments of local self-government. The foundation of the Indian ad- ministrative system lay in the division of the State territory into provinces, or districts, of varying size, and the appoint- ment in each area of officers to carry out the orders of the central authority. The conditions of appointment differed, but throughout the whole country they may be classified as belong- ing to one of two types, the distinction between which is marked by the Indian words kachcha and pakka or their Persian equivalents khām and pukhta. An officer who held his post kachcha was remunerated by a salary which, in theory at least, was a fixed sum, while he had to account to his superior for all the revenue he collected ; on the other hand an officer who held pakka had to pay a fixed sum to his superior, and was entitled to retain all that he could collect in excess of that amount. In Akbar’s time, both systems of appoint- ment were followed, but the information which is available suggests that the former prevailed in Northern India and the latter in the south.

The description left by Nuniz indicates that the territory of Vijayanagar was parcelled out among the nobles of the Empire. The nobles, he says, “are like renters, who hold all the land from the King : they also pay to him every year 60 lakhs of rents as royal dues. The lands, they say, yield 120 lakhs, of which they must pay 60 to the King, and the rest they retain for the pay of soldiers and the expenses of the elephants which they are obliged to maintain. For this reason the common people suffer much hardship, those who hold the lands being so tyrannical.” In other words, a noble to whom a district was entrusted was bound to pay a fixed sum and provide a certain force : so long as he fulfilled these obligations, he could do very much what he liked. This account refers to the early part of the century, but it is prob- able that the system survived,¹ and that the final collapse of the Empire meant merely that the nobles at last ceased to pay the fixed revenue, and by that act became independent sovereigns of the territories already in their possession.

In the case of the Deccan kingdoms, accounts of the administrative system prevailing at the end of the sixteenth century are not available. Barbosa wrote that the whole kingdom of the Deccan was divided among Moorish (Moslem) lords, and that the King took no part in the Government, but this description refers to the last days of the Bahmani kingdom which was then rapidly disintegrating, and it is uncertain whether a similar system of devolution was practised in the new States which emerged. There is, however, no doubt that by the middle of the seventeenth century the nobles in Golconda at least enjoyed a large measure of independence. On passing from Mogul territory into the Deccan, Thévenot was at once struck by the insolence of the tax-collectors acting in the name of the lords to whom the villages had been granted, and later on he noted that the King granted the land to the highest bidder, or to his favourites, and that the nobles made “extraordinary exactions” on their grants, while the weak- ness of the central government allowed them to commit occasional outrages even in the capital city. It is of course possible that the nobles attained this position only a short time before Thévenot wrote, but I think it is more probable that the system was of old standing, and that we are justified in regarding the greater part of India south of the latitude of Bombay as governed by nobles, who so long as they paid the revenue and maintained the requisite forces could do very much as they chose. The King or Emperor had doubtless unlimited power to reverse their acts and to remove them from their positions: the extent to which these powers were exercised must have depended on the personality of the ruler, but they should be regarded as ordinarily held in reserve, and counting for comparatively little in the every-day business of the country.

The position in the Mogul Empire was so far different that office was ordinarily held on the terms described as kachcha, and that under Akbar the rudiments of departmental organisa- tion had come into existence. Akbar divided his Empire into Sūbas, or provinces, and the Governor of the Sūba was responsible for every part of its administration, but the actual administrative unit was the Sarkār or district, each of which had a military commander (Faujdār) distinct from the revenue officer (Amalguzār). Further, the principal cities and sea- ports were in charge of separate officers, but taking the Empire as a whole, the separation of functions was rudimentary com- pared with the present state of things in India. As has been said in the previous chapter, the administrative ideal favoured direct relations between the State and the individual peasant, the assessment and collection of revenue being controlled from the centre, and officers having to account in detail for all receipts. There are, however, numerous indications that this ideal was not fully realised in practice, and it is probable that in many areas where the zamindars were left in charge of the administration they were responsible only for the pay- ment of a fixed revenue.

In the Mogul Empire the relation between collection of revenue and provision of troops was so far maintained that the administration of each sarkār or district was held responsible for the supply of the local force known as Būmi, which con- sisted mainly of infantry, but included also cavalry and elephants, and in some localities guns and boats. The bulk of the fighting army was, however, provided on a slightly different system : the officers of the State were required to maintain contingents in proportion to their cash salaries, and this liability was personal and independent of the particular locality in which an officer might be employed. This organisa- tion is explained in a subsequent chapter, and for the moment it is sufficient to point out that while Akbar’s system resembled that of the south in requiring the local authorities to provide certain forces, it relied mainly on contingents more directly amenable to the Emperor’s disciplinary authority.

Judicial organisation had at this period made little progress, and the redress of individual grievances was the duty of the King or Emperor, that is to say in practice of the Executive. Akbar maintained judicial officers known as the Kāzi and the Mir Adl, but the extent of their jurisdiction is not clearly described,¹ and I suspect that they dealt mainly with questions arising out of Moslem law ; at any rate the litigation, both civil and criminal, described by visitors was usually conducted before executive officers, and very commonly before the Kotwal, or City Governor, who is found in Vijayanagar and in the Deccan as well as in the north, and whose functions will be discussed in the next section but one.

II. The Course of Justice

From the economic point of view the details of the framework of the administration are comparatively unim- portant ; the merchant or the producer is concerned mainly with the questions : Can justice be obtained, and how ? Are the cities safe for residence and business ? What are the conditions affecting the transit of men and goods ? Answers to these questions must be sought chiefly in the records left by foreign visitors, for the chroniclers of the country were apt to take such things for granted, and where they allude to them they have no standard of com- parison even when their statements are not coloured by obvious flattery. Foreign visitors compared conditions in India with those they knew at home, and it is important to bear in mind that, about the year 1600, Western Europe was very different from what it is to-day ; in England, for instance, judicial integrity and impartiality cannot be said to have been finally established at that period, while the modern security of travel is little older than the railway system. Allowing, however, for the influence of the point of view, we are told enough to enable us to form a general impression of the conditions in which business was carried on.

As regards the measure of justice obtainable, a merchant who wished to enforce a contract or recover a debt could not put his case into the hands of a professional lawyer, for the simple reason that the profession did not exist ; he would have to appear and plead his cause in person. The idea is at first sight attractive, but the experience of the world has shown that it does not work well in practice, and in India suitors knew that even a good case must be supported by bribery or by influence of some description : they might pay some- thing to the authority who would dispose of the case, or they might induce some influential person to speak to that authority on their behalf. Bribery was almost universal in India at this time. Regarding Vijayanagar Nuniz tells us this in plain words, Sir Thomas Roe found practically the same conditions at Jahangir’s court, and between these two authorities I have found no assertion to the contrary. Roe indeed mentions an exception, speaking of one man as “no briber, reported honest,” but it is the only exception that I can recall. The same writer gives a good illustration of the power of influence. There was no court in the Mogul Empire in which the English merchants could recover their debts, and for a long time the executive officers took very little trouble in the matter. When, however, Roe had secured the friendship of the Vazir, matters moved more rapidly: an order to the Kotwal secured the prompt imprisonment of the defaulters, and their objections were disposed of summarily by the Vazir himself. Assuming that a suitor was able to out-bribe or out-influence his opponent, it seems probable that a decision could be obtained more speedily than at the present day, but it must have been difficult to judge beforehand whether it would be worth while to set the authorities in motion.¹

Foreign observers comment on the absence of any body of written law, but we may doubt whether this was a serious evil to residents of the country. The Emperor’s will was supreme, but the official record of Akbar’s institutions contains very little that can be described as civil law, and we must assume that courts and officers were guided by Hindu or Moslem law, by custom, and by their personal views, but in all cases subject to the condition that they should not risk incurring the displeasure of the Emperor. The ruler of the time was accessible to private appeals, and we read of cases where such appeals were successfully made, but distances were great, travel was in some instances dangerous, and the dissatisfied suitor must have had to consider in each case whether an appeal was worth the cost and risk. An un- successful appellant might get into serious trouble: Finch, after describing the well-known bells provided for the use of appellants in the palace at Agra, adds: “But let them be sure their cause be good, lest he be punished for presumption that trouble the King.” The threat of appeal to the ultimate authority seems to have been most important when it was made by a community rather than an individual. We find occasional suggestions of communal pressure on the officers concerned in the revenue administration, a practice which still survives in the tradition of the country, and a vivid illustration of its working is on record in the year 1616. An officer employed in the custom-house at Surat in that year did " some violence " to a leading Hindu merchant, whereupon " the whole multitude assembled shut up their shops and (as their custom) after a general complaint to the Governor left the city, pretending to go to the Court for justice, but with much fair usage and fairer promises were fetched back." In this way, if in no other, public opinion might be brought to bear on the side of justice : officials were above all things anxious to avoid a scandal at the Emperor’s Court.

Practical men are more interested in the execution of a decree than in the law on which it rests, or even the means by which it has been obtained. In the Mogul Empire execution processes were drastic : we read not merely of the sale of a debtor’s goods and house-property, but of his imprisonment, along with his family and servants, while he might be sold into slavery or handed over to the creditor in satisfaction of the decree. These processes, however, did not run as a matter of course : bribes and influence were necessary to set them to work, and to keep them working when they had started, and the general conclusion must be that while individuals could look to the State to redress their private wrongs, proceedings required careful judgment throughout or they might prove unfruitful, or cost more than they brought in.

III. SECURITY IN THE CITIES

When we ask what was the position of men of business in the cities, the answer must be that almost everything depended on the personality of the Kotwal, or, where there was no Kotwal, of the officers in charge of the local administration. The description of the Kotwal’s duties contained in the Ain-i Akbari shows that he was intended to be very much more than the head of the city police, to which office the term is now usually restricted : it was his duty to prevent and detect crime, but he had also power to punish offenders, to perform many of the functions now assigned to municipal boards, to regulate prices, to set the idle to work, and speaking generally to inter- fere in almost every detail of the daily life of the city. The regulations are somewhat rhetorical, and must be read as setting out Akbar’s ideal of city government : we may fairly question whether the ideal was often realised in practice, but there can be no doubt that, with these regulations in his hands, and so long as he possessed the confidence of his superiors, the Kotwal was a very powerful autocrat, and could make life either pleasant or intolerable for the individual citizen. The scope for bribery and influence must have been enormous, but provided that an individual took care to maintain friendly relations with the authorities, the cities appear to have been reasonably comfortable places for residence and business, and foreign merchants were on the whole favourably impressed with the extent to which order was maintained.

The title of Kotwal was in use in the Deccan as well as in the north, and Thévenot describes the Kotwal of Golconda as the chief officer of the city, and also the chief judge. I do not know what designation was used in Vijayanagar, but that city was administered by a single officer sub- stantially on the lines subsequently laid down by Akbar, and visitors to it recorded that thieves were few, and that the property of foreign merchants was well protected. This latter statement appears to be of general applica- tion : visitors would have been careful to record any losses or oppression suffered by them, and their silence may reason- ably be taken as showing that they had no serious grounds for complaint. It is not possible to speak with equal certainty of the experience of Indian merchants : there is no doubt that the Kotwal had extensive powers, but the degree of integrity with which they were exercised must remain a matter of conjecture.

One incident of the Kotwal’s position deserves mention, because it seems to have given rise to rather exaggerated ideas regarding the security of property in Indian cities. Various travellers state that the Kotwal was personally liable to make good the value of any stolen property which he was unable to recover, and that this is something more than a traveller’s tale is shown by Akbar’s regulation that the Kotwal should discover stolen goods or be responsible for the loss. The practical value of this system of State insurance against theft was, however, very slight. Thévenot, who examined its work- ing at Surat, came to the conclusion that any one who took the post would understand how to avoid the necessity of payment, and he tells a story which puts the matter in what I take to be the true light. While Thévenot was at Surat, an Armenian merchant was robbed, and the Kotwal failed to detect the offenders. The Armenian was disposed to press the case : the Governor in effect told the Kotwal that there must be no scandal : the latter thereupon proposed to torture the complainant so as to clear up some uncertainty as to the precise value of the stolen property : the Governor approved of this course, and the case came to an abrupt conclusion because under the threat of torture the Armenian withdrew his complaint. “That,” says Thévenot, “is a fair sample of the Kotwal’s conduct”

Torture of witnesses and suspected persons was in fact one of the two methods on which the police administration principally relied, as indeed was the case in parts of Europe at the same period. Thévenot, pursuing his account of the practical working of the administration, gives a precise description of the way in which suspects were whipped, the torture continuing for several days until either a confession had been secured, the stolen property recovered, or suspicion diverted in some other direction. Apart from torture, the police depended upon espionage, a subject on which Akbar’s regulations are clear and detailed. An “obscure resident” was to be appointed as a spy in each quarter of the city ; detectives were to watch all arrivals at the inns or sarais ; the lives of individuals were to be carefully scrutinised ; and speaking generally, it was the Kotwal’s business to know everything that happened and to act on his knowledge.

Punishments were as drastic as in Europe at the same period, and were perhaps even more cruel. Their nature can best be indicated by the following quotation from the Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangir regarding the arrest of an habitual offender by the Kotwal of Ahmadabad. “He had committed several thefts before, and each time they had cut off one of his members: once his right hand, the second time the thumb of his left hand, the third time his left ear, the fourth time they hamstringed him, and the last time his nose; he with all this did not give up his business, and yesterday entered the house of a grass-seller in order to steal. By chance the owner of the house was on the look-out and seized him. The thief wounded the grass-seller several times with a knife and killed him. In the uproar and confusion his relatives attacked the thief and caught him. I ordered them to hand over the thief to the relatives of the deceased that they might retaliate on him.”

It will be seen that the Kotwal occupied a strong position in regard to the repression of crime, since his powers for detection were reinforced by the threat of such punishments as these; and we need not be surprised that foreign merchants, whose presence was usually welcomed by the administration, should have had little cause for complaint in regard to the security of life and property. While, however, order was fairly well maintained in normal times, there was always a feeling of uncertainty as to the future. Governments were less stable than they are to-day, and the administration of a town or province might collapse with very little warning. Akbar’s Empire had been in serious danger as late as 1581 from rebellions in Bengal and Kabul, while Gujarat was in revolt in 1584, and, after a short period of comparative tran- quillity, the early years of Jahangir were marked by internal disorders in various localities from Delhi to Bengal. Sir Thomas Roe when ambassador to this Emperor laid down a policy for the English merchants in view of the civil disturb- ances which he apprehended, advising them to make few debts and to hold together instead of scattering themselves over the country, and similar considerations must have had weight with Indian men of business throughout the Empire. The results of a collapse of the administration may perhaps be inferred from the account given by an English merchant named Salbank of the condition of Agra during a great epidemic in 1616 ; he tells how his life was daily in danger " by reason of the licentiousness of certain impious villains, that after people were gone [from] their houses . . . did not stick to break up the same and carry all such movable goods as they found. This they did, not only in houses where all the people had fled, but also in other houses where few were left to defend their goods." That is to say, the forces of disorder were present, even in the capital of the Empire, just as they are present to-day, but the chances of their activity were very much greater, and required to be taken into account by any prudent man of affairs : so long as the administration stood firm, he had merely to keep on friendly terms with the Kotwal and his numerous subordinates, but he must be prepared to shift for himself in the not improbable event of a collapse.

IV. SECURITY IN THE COUNTRY

Outside the large cities, there was no officer corresponding to the Kotwal, and the maintenance of law and order was, in the Mogul Empire at least, included in the functions of the revenue administration. The degree of security attained in the country generally can be inferred only from the observa- tions of travellers : the information they give us is far from being complete, but it is sufficient to justify the statement that conditions varied very greatly from place to place and also from time to time, so that the personality of the local officers was probably the most important single factor to be taken into account. In studying the evidence on this subject allowance must be made for the fact that the standard of the seventeenth-century traveller was not that of the present day : highway robberies were to be expected in Europe as well as in India, and conditions which would now be regarded as almost intolerable might be described as satisfactory by a traveller of the time of Jahangir. Allowance must also be made for the estimation in which Europeans were at this time held in India. As yet they enjoyed no such prestige as was gradually built up by the experience of the next two centuries: the official world regarded them with somewhat disdainful interest as merchants who might have goods worth buying and who probably had some money to spend: by the populace the foreigners were, I take it, regarded chiefly as rather dangerous curiosities. On the other hand, Europeans in general did not regard Indians with disdain: the impression left by the available narratives is one of open-mindedness, and where an unfavourable verdict is expressed, as in the later portions of Sir Thomas Roe’s journal, it is based on experience and not on prejudice.¹ European merchants then started on a journey on practically the same footing as Persians, Arabs, or travellers from other parts of India, and it is permissible to accept their experience as typical of the time and place where it was obtained.

As an example of these experiences, we may follow the travels of a merchant named William Finch as recorded in his journal, which is printed in Purchas His Pilgrimes. Finch was careful to note details which interested him, and I can trace no sign of prejudice in his journal. He sailed from England on the third voyage of the East India Company, and reached India in August 1608. Sixteen months later he travelled to Agra, and after staying in that neighbourhood for nine months, buying indigo and performing other duties for the Company, he marched to Lahore, where his personal record ends, though he describes various other routes from hearsay.²

From Surat to Agra there were two well-known routes, the western through Ahmadabad and Ajmer, and the eastern by way of Burhanpur and Gwalior. Finch chose the latter, and following the line of the Tapti, reached Burhanpur in sixteen marches. For the first four stages he tells us nothing of interest: in the fifth he came to broken country, where, he says, " Ba[ha]dur keepeth, holding divers strong forts thereon that the king with all his force cannot hurt him." ¹ In the sixth stage he passed " a troublesome stony river," and at the seventh he halted in Badur [Bhadwar] " a filthy town and full of thieves." He mentions that this point was the limit of the jurisdiction of a petty Raja; Akbar had " besieged " him for seven years, but " in the end was forced to compound with him," and left him in possession of certain villages " for the safe conducting of his merchants along this plain." The next stage was Nandurbar, an important town, of which he tells us nothing; the next " a beastly town with thievish inhabitants, and a dirty castle “; while the following march led to " a great, dirty town,” where he contracted dysentery by drinking bad water. In this march he had an adventure: " In the way the Governor of Lingull [Nimgul] (with others as honest as himself) would have borrowed some money of me, but, seeing it prove powder and shot, gave over, and we drew on our carts without trouble." The next march was " a thievish way," and then he joined the party of the Governor of Nandurbar: the roads were dangerous just then, for Jahangir’s General, the Khan Khanan, had been defeated in the Deccan and had retired on Burhanpur, " whereupon the Deccanis grew so insolent that they made roads [inroads] into this way and spoiled many passengers." Four more marches followed, during which Finch nearly died of dysentery, and then he reached Burhanpur, the base of Jahangir’s army of the Deccan, and at this time thought to be in danger of an attack. " The city is very great but beastly, situated in a low unwholesome air, a very sickly place." Two days after his arrival came news that some of the towns where he had halted had been sacked by the enemy, so that he was fortunate in getting over this part of the journey when he did.

At Burhanpur the road left the Tapti and struck north- west for Mandu and Malwa, crossing the Satpura range and the Narbada river, and then ascending the steep scarp of the Vindhyas. The track was very bad, successive marches being described as “stony and steep way,” “stony trouble- some way,” “bad way,” and “steep way” ; while the ascent to Mandu was “up a steep stony mountain, having way but for a coach at most.” After Mandu there was one more bad stage, and then a good road to Ujjain. Finch had joined the camp of the Governor of Burhanpur, and up to this point says nothing of thieves, but on the second march northwards to Gwalior he found the “way much stony and thievish” and a group of travellers was saved from the hill-robbers only by the approach of his party. Two marches followed without incident, then we read “the way for the last five koses thievish, hilly, stony, the other pleasant plains,” and then three more marches brought him to Sironj. From Sironj to Sipri travel was easy and pleasant until the last day, when the way was “thievish, stony, full of trees, a desert passage” : here “two nights before some 60 or 70 thieves, mistaking for a late- passed caravan, assailed in a dark night 150 Patan soldiers, and fell into the pit they digged for others.” The next stage, to Narwar, was worse, “a desert rascally way, full of thieves” ; there were guard-houses in the jungle, but the watchmen were not to be trusted, for “the fox is often made the goose- herd.” From Narwar to Gwalior there were no incidents, and from Gwalior to Agra the only danger was among the ravines at the passage of the Chambal. The whole journey from Surat to Agra occupied about ten weeks.

A little later we find Finch buying indigo near Biana, a town lying south-west of Agra, and in those days a well-known market for the commodity. His notes on this journey are chiefly of agricultural interest, but he mentions that Fatehpur Sikri “still standeth fair, but all ruinate,” and that Biana too was decayed, “save two sarais and a long bazar, with a few straggling houses, many fair ones being quite fallen and many others not inhabited except by rogues or thieves." Returning to Agra, he started for Lahore to collect debts due to the Company. The march to Delhi up the right bank of the Jumna was without incident, but just north of the city the country was disturbed : " some report being given out of the King’s death, many rogues with false alarms were abroad ; we met the Faujdar [military governor] of Delhi, with some 2000 horse and foot in their pursuit . . . and the next day at breakfast we were like to be surprised by thieves." At the entrance to Panipat he saw " the heads of some hundred thieves newly taken ; their bodies set on stakes, a mile in length." The way to Karnal was " thievish, where but for our peece-language¹ we had been assaulted " ; but from Karnal to Lahore there was no trouble, though at the latter place he heard news of a rebellion in Kabul.

Finch’s experience then was that you might travel long distances in India without serious danger, but that caution was always necessary. Robbers were to be expected in hilly and wooded country, but they might be met with at any time in the open plains ; a false rumour might set the countryside ablaze ; and the road watchmen were by no means to be trusted without reserve. Other travellers tell substantially the same story : some were more fortunate than others, and their impressions vary accordingly, but the general result of their experiences is summed up accurately in the preceding sentence. A few of these experiences may be quoted. Var- thema and Nuniz assure us that Vijayanagar was safe in the prosperous period of the Empire, but it is possible that the weakening of the central authority may have resulted in some deterioration in this respect. Fitch (1583–91) mentions the abundance of thieves near Patna, while in Bengal he travelled to Hooghly through the jungle because the ordinary road was infested by thieves. Withington (1613) attempted to march from Ahmadabad to Lahari Bandar on the Indus, but found the population utterly lawless, and was at last taken prisoner by the guard he had hired for his protection. About the year 1615 the English merchants found the roads from Surat to Ahmadabad and Broach exceedingly dangerous owing to large gangs of robbers : about the same time, Steel and Crowther reported that the road from Agra to Lahore was " dangerous in the night for thieves, but in the day secure " ; and in 1617 the Golconda country was entirely shut off from the north by wars and disturbances. As regards the general impressions of travellers, we may compare the favourable view taken by Terry (about 1616), whose camp was only attacked on one occasion, with the report of Hawkins a few years earlier that " the country is so full of thieves and outlaws that almost a man cannot stir out of doors throughout all his [Jahangir’s] dominions without great forces." ¹ Hawkins admits that conditions had deteriorated since the death of Akbar, but they had not been perfect in Akbar’s time, for one of Jahangir’s first orders on his accession was intended to improve the control of roads where thefts and robberies took place : we may doubt whether his orders were effective, but their issue is reasonably good evidence that matters were not entirely satisfactory.

V. CUSTOMS AND TRANSIT DUES

A few words must now be said regarding the charges borne by merchants in return for the degree of security which they enjoyed. The attitude of the central administrations towards foreign commerce was at this period usually favourable, and the prescribed scales of customs duties were distinctly moderate. Abul Fazl states that under Akbar the duties did not exceed 2½ per cent, and the charges of which we read as actually paid do not appear to have been materially higher.¹ At the sea- ports, however, as throughout the country, the personality of the local officers counted for very much, the more so that the customs seem to have been commonly let on contract, or in Indian phrase were held pukhta. An individual officer might welcome merchants and give them all facilities for trade : he might also refuse to admit their goods at all ; and he might claim, apart from customs, a large share of the profits for him- self. A good example of the position occupied by the customs officers is furnished by the story of the attempt made by English merchants to open trade at the Indus port of Lahari Bandar, in the year 1613. The Portuguese were already established in trade at this port, and they objected very strongly to competition by merchants of any other nation ; they threatened the Governor that they would abandon his port if he allowed the English to trade, and this put him in a difficulty, because they paid large sums as duty, and “ he having farmed the customs of that port from the King, unto whom he stood bound for the payment of certain sums of money yearly for the same, whether it came in or not, it behoved him carefully to be circumspect in ordering these businesses.” He offered therefore to admit the English trade if it could be guaranteed to be more remunerative than that conducted by the Portuguese, but the merchants were not in a position to promise this, and so they sailed southward without transacting any business. In the same year one of the Company’s merchants named Flores, writing from the Coro- mandel coast, insisted on the risks resulting from the person- ality of the officers in authority. A Governor might allow open trade, or he might claim it for himself, taking over the goods to be sold for his own profit ; and if he chose the latter course there was a risk of default, “ these Governors’ debts being good while they continue their place : otherwise doubtful.” Again, in a protest drawn up in 1615 by the merchants at Surat against the conduct of the local authorities, it was alleged that “the Governor and Customer do lay aside the choicest and principal wares so brought [that is, to the custom- house], and send them to their houses without making price unto the merchant, and after long (if ever payment be made) it shall be very under rates, and less than they cost.” Sir Thomas Roe too complained that the Governor of Surat required better presents than were at first offered before he would permit trade to be opened ; and the conclusion may fairly be drawn that the authorised scale of customs duties counted for little in the calculations of ordinary merchants, compared with the payments which would have to be made in one form or another in order to secure the favour of the officers on the spot.

This conclusion applies to the principal ports under Indian rule. Where the Portuguese were in authority, the cost to merchants was probably, if anything, rather higher, because the administration was exceedingly corrupt, and the control of important ports furnished some of the greatest prizes of the service. On the other hand, abuses were rare at some of the Malabar seaports, and particularly at Calicut, which had reached prosperity by the development of the transhipment trade between the Red Sea and the Straits of Malacca, and where the organisation of the custom-house received high praise from European visitors such as Pyrard.

In regard to inland transit dues the position of merchants, whether Indian or foreign, was much less favourable. The tradition of the country was in favour of this method of raising revenue, and though transit dues were from time to time remitted, the fact that identical dues were remitted by successive rulers makes it difficult to attach much importance to such concessions. Akbar remitted transit dues on at least two occasions during his reign, and the evidence seems to justify Mr. Vincent Smith’s inference ¹ that “the benevolent intentions of the autocrat were commonly defeated by distant governors enjoying practical independence during their term of office ; " but it is also possible that such concessions were not intended to have more than temporary effect, and certainly no merchant would have been justified in relying on their permanence. At any rate it is clear that transit dues were charged towards the end of Akbar’s reign, though they may not have reached the Imperial Treasury ; for one of Jahangir’s first orders after his accession was to forbid the levy of road and river tolls, as well as " other burdens which the jagirdars [grantees] of every province and district had imposed for their own profit." River tolls, indeed, are expressly stated in the Ain to have been retained by Akbar, as well as fees for the use of ferries.

When we turn from official records to the evidence of travellers, we are met by the fact that transit dues were such an ordinary feature of the period as to be scarcely worth mentioning in narratives designed to show the pecu- liarities of Indian life. We can, however, infer their existence from incidental allusions, such as the complaint of a Portu- guese priest that the Mogul’s practice of collecting taxes on inland vessels was accompanied by peculation and extortion, or Monserrate’s remark that the low prices prevailing in Akbar’s camp were due in part to the exemption from taxes of goods brought in for sale. At a later period travellers like Mundy, Thévenot, and Tavernier, who took an interest in such topics, show us a regular system of transit dues in force throughout large portions of the country, and Father Sebastian Manrique tells how the passport granted to him as an ecclesiastic to travel from Lahore to the mouth of the Indus was used by a merchant of his party to evade many demands during the journey.

Transit and city dues were certainly heavy in Vijayanagar during the sixteenth century. When a new city was founded, we are told that " nothing comes through the gate that does not pay duty, even men and women as well as head-loads and merchandise " ; while no one could enter the capital without paying whatever the tax-contractors chose to ask. At the end of the century, too, the missionaries insist on the need for passports in this part of India in order to avoid infinite trouble regarding dues and taxes. As regards the Deccan, I have found no information about the sixteenth century, but in Thévenot’s time the system was exceedingly vexatious, and on the road from Aurangabad to Golconda he counted sixteen taxing posts in twenty-three leagues. Taking then India as a whole, a merchant of the period would naturally calculate on having to pay fairly often in the course of a journey of any length, though he might hope to escape occasionally, if the local administration happened at the moment to be in favour of free passage. Apart, too, from official charges, there were other burdens to be taken into account. We have seen already that the road watchmen were regarded as untrustworthy, and in places it seems to have been the practice to compel merchants to pay heavily for escorts over roads reputed to be dangerous. In the wilder parts of the country, blackmail was paid to the local chieftains, and we may perhaps infer its more general existence from Jahangir’s order directing that the bales of merchants should not be opened on the roads without in- forming them and obtaining their leave. In one way then or in another, the burdens on inland trade were substantial, quite apart from the actual cost of carriage, but the data which are available do not enable us to form even a vague idea of their amount.

VI. EFFECT ON TRADE AND INDUSTRY

The conditions which have been described in the preceding sections, and which sound so nearly intolerable at the present day, did not in all probability suffice to interfere very seriously with internal or foreign commerce as conducted at the end of the sixteenth century. Bribes, presents, taxes, and even thefts in transit can all be brought into account, and in the long run these charges had to be borne by the consumer. The English factors at Surat reported to the Company that Indian merchants “in regard of danger etcetera by travel deal not in any commodity without apparency of great profit,” and that remark really sums up the position: goods would not be carried unless the transaction would leave a profit after meeting all expenses, and if the expenses were high the selling price must be high enough to cover them. Then as now, the success of a merchant depended on his ability to forecast costs and prices, and these items of cost could be forecasted with some approach to accuracy. There was, however, another risk which wealthy merchants had to take into account. Sir Thomas Roe remarks that the Mogul was the heir of all his subjects, and though this statement is too wide, the Emperor certainly claimed the goods left by the wealthier merchants as well as by his nobles and officers. The successful man was therefore under the necessity of concealing his wealth if he wished to transmit it to his family, and in some parts of India at least the risk was not limited to the case of death: one observer remarks that merchants known to be wealthy were liable to be used as “fill’d sponges,” or in modern slang, to be “squeezed,” and I know of nothing to make this suggestion appear improbable. It was good to be rich, but it might be bad to let your wealth be known: “let the profit be ever so great, the man by whom it has been made must still wear the garb of indigence.”

It is obvious that these conditions would have been very unfavourable to the establishment of industry on a capitalist basis: a wealthy man would have been exceedingly unwise to invest largely in fixed capital when the administration might at any time collapse, or when a change of local officers might expose him to a campaign of ruinous extortion. This question, however, has no practical interest, for the day of capitalist enterprise had not dawned. The industrial production of India at this period was large and valuable, but so far as I can gather it was entirely in the hands of the artisans, presumably financed by merchants and middlemen, but individually of too little importance to attract the hostility or cupidity of the higher officials. The city artisan had doubtless to secure the favour of the subordinates and spies detailed by the Kotwal for the supervision of the locality in which he lived, and outside the cities there were other minor officials to be propitiated; but it is reasonable to assume that these matters were adjusted on a customary basis, and that the position was not felt to be particularly irksome. The peasant cultivators, then as now by far the most im- portant section of the population, were much more directly concerned with the quality of the administration, but it is more convenient to postpone the discussion of their position until we come to examine the agricultural and land-revenue system in detail.

VII. WEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND CURRENCY

Before leaving the subject of administrative conditions it will be well to say something of the systems of weights, measures, and currency, which were already, in part at least, regulated by the various Indian governments, and some knowledge of which is essential to a proper understanding of the contemporary authorities. The matter is, however, one of detail, and this section can be passed over lightly by readers who do not intend to study those authorities for themselves. In the sixteenth century, as in the twentieth, the leading characteristic of the Indian systems of weights and measures is diversity : then as now we find old local standards existing side by side with those which had been officially prescribed, and we find further that as a rule scales are more uniform than units, the maund, for instance, usually containing forty sers, but the weight of the maund, and consequently of the ser, varying from place to place. The diversity is more noticeable at the seaports, where units introduced by foreign merchants had become established side by side with the local systems ; but in all the contemporary authorities where quantities are stated it is necessary to ascer- tain the unit to which reference is made. Apparently most Indian administrations were content with this position, and I have not found any record of attempts to secure uniformity of weights and measures either in Vijayanagar or in the kingdoms of the Deccan. Akbar, however, took a more modern view, and prescribed the principal units of weight, length, and surface measure : there is no doubt that his units were employed in the neighbourhood of his capital, but, as we shall see, they had not become established in the seaports up to the time of his death, and it appears to be probable that, as has happened occasionally in later times, the final result of his action was to increase the previous complexity by the introduction of yet another series of competing units.

Before the change introduced by Akbar the commonest maund of Northern India appears to have weighed about 28 or 29 lb. avoirdupois. Akbar fixed the weight of the ser at 30 dams, the dam being the principal copper coin : the maund of 40 sers thus weighed 388,275 grains, or practically $55\frac{1}{2}$ lb. avoir- dupois, and for ordinary rough comparisons it may be thought of as 56 lb., or just half a hundredweight, so that 40 of Akbar’s maunds would make a ton as against 27 of the maunds now in ordinary use. It is safe to assume that this maund is used in the Ain-i Akbari, which is an official record, and there is evidence to show that it was employed in mercantile trans- actions in the neighbourhood of the Imperial capital, but it does not appear to have spread to distant parts of the Empire. At Surat and the other Cambay ports there were two maunds in ordinary use, the smaller being 27 lb. and the larger about 33 lb. : the latter is based on a ser weighing 18 dams, and this relation was known to some of the earliest English merchants. In reading of the west coast, therefore, the smaller local maund should be thought of as a quarter of a hundredweight, and the larger as two-sevenths of that unit.

The maund appears to have been known at least as far south as Goa, where it varied between 20 and 30 lb., but the unit of weight most commonly mentioned in Southern India is the candy, which also varied greatly, but may be taken as somewhere about 500 lb. The bahar, which is also frequently referred to, was a foreign unit, introduced by the Arab merchants throughout the Indian seas : its weight varied with the mercantile customs governing the sale of different com- modities, but it usually indicates something less than a candy. Contemporary European writers refer also to the quintal (or kintal), which represented about 130 lb., and may be thought of as somewhat larger than a hundredweight. Lastly, it must be remembered that in the authorities the pound itself does not always mean exactly the same thing. English writers of the period mean the pound avoirdupois which is still in use, but in translations from the French the word denotes the livre, a unit which varied from time to time, but at this period was nearly equivalent to half a modern kilogram, or say 1·1 lb. Differences such as this may be important in the interpretation of particular statements, but for a general study of the economic circumstances of the time it is probably sufficient to bear in mind that the pound means what it means now, that the maund means 56 lb. at or near the Mogul capital, and about 30 lb. elsewhere, while candy and bahar mean much larger quantities, approximating to one-fifth or one-quarter of a ton.

The unit of length in Northern India was the gaz: the word is frequently translated “yard,” and the unit may be thought of in this sense, but there is a substantial difference. The history of the gaz is given in the Ain-i Akbari, but here it is sufficient to say that Akbar eventually introduced a com- promise unit which he named the Ilahi gaz, and which measured 30¾ inches. That this unit was in fact used in Northern India may be inferred from Prinsep’s statement made in 1834 that “in a great degree it still maintains its position as the standard of the Upper Provinces” ; it was not, however, used in the commercial centres of the west coast where transactions were effected in terms of the covad. The covad varied in length with the class of merchandise : for cotton cloth it was about 26 inches, while for woollens it was larger, about 35 inches, or “a yard within an inch” ; uniformity was, however, not to be expected, and the merchant who gives this descrip- tion of the covad at Surat expresses a doubt whether the covad at Broach has the same value. In regard then to measures, as to weights, it was a merchant’s business to find out the value of the unit in each market where he proposed to deal. The unit of surface measure is important only for the inter- pretation of contemporary statistics of area, and its considera- tion need not detain us.

Akbar’s administration led the way in currency as in weights and measures, and the detailed description of the Imperial mints which is given in the Ain-i Akbari makes it possible to form an accurate idea of the system established in the Mogul Empire. The coins in regular use were silver and copper. Gold coins were also struck, but most of the twenty-six denominations may be described as “fancy,” and the three which were struck regularly were rarely found in circulation, being too large for retail transactions, and being sought mainly in order to be hoarded. The chief silver coin was the rupee of 172½ grains grains, which in weight (but not in purchasing power) was practically identical with the coin now known by that name: the chief copper coin was the dam, and in each case there were subsidiary coins, the smallest silver piece being ¹⁄₂₀ rupee, and the smallest copper ⅛ dam. The copper coins were not as now tokens, but, like the silver, circulated at the value of the metal they contained, and consequently there were two independent standards (or three if we include gold), the rates of exchange between which might vary from time to time or from place to place. In the official accounts forty copper dams were taken as equivalent to one rupee, and the fluctua- tions in the rate were not at this time serious, at least in Upper India, but there was apparently something in the nature of a constant difference between the rate at the headquarters of the Empire and that ruling on the west coast. This differ- ence arose from the position in regard to the supply of the two metals : the silver used for coinage was imported by sea, and had to bear the cost of carriage up-country, while the copper was obtained from the mines of Rajputana, and increased in value as it was carried southwards; consequently at any given time a rupee would exchange for more dams at Delhi or Agra than at Surat or Cambay. The difference was not, however, very great, and the general reader can safely take forty dams as the equivalent of a rupee, especially as Gujarat, then the chief centre of oversea trade, had not at this period adopted the rupee, but transacted business in the mahmudi, a silver coin of rather less than half its value. Stated in terms of contemporary English currency, the rupee was worth about 2s. 3d., and the mahmudi about 11d., subject in each case to fairly large fluctuations.

Even the smallest copper coin (the damri or 1/8 dam, or 1/320 rupee) did not suffice either for the detailed items of the Imperial accounts or for the small transactions of everyday life. For the former purpose, the dam was subdivided on paper into twenty-five jitals, so that the accounts could be kept to the one-thousandth part of a rupee; for the latter, cowries were used, as is still the case, their value in terms of silver or copper depending on the distance from the coast.On the other hand, there is no trace of larger aggregates of money corresponding to the modern currency notes: merchants who had to remit large sums could usually do so by bills of exchange, while as an alternative they could carry pearls or precious stones for sale at their destination. The need for large aggregates was also reduced by the high purchasing power of the rupee. It is not possible to speak with absolute precision on this point, but an examination of the statistics of prices given in the Ain-i Akbari indicates that towards the end of the sixteenth century a rupee would purchase in the vicinity of the capital at least seven times as much grain as could be bought in Upper India in the years 1910–12, at least eleven times as much oilseeds, and probably five times as much cloth, while on the other hand metals were little cheaper than now and imported goods were actually dearer. On this basis it may be said that to the very poorest classes a rupee of the year 1600 was worth as much as seven rupees of 1912; to the classes just above the line of extreme poverty it was worth about six rupees, and to the middle classes about five rupees or possibly more. For general purposes therefore it is reasonable (at least, until these conclusions shall be upset by the discovery of new data) to think of one of Akbar’s rupees as equivalent in purchasing power to six rupees in the period before the war, or in other words, to recognise that a monthly income of five rupees would provide the same quantity of necessaries as could be purchased from an income of thirty rupees in 1912.

The currency of Southern India at this period, unlike that of the Mogul Empire, was based essentially upon gold, which was also the chief circulating medium. The standard coin was known variously as varāhu or as hūn, but in European writings it is usually spoken of as pagoda, and its average value may be taken as about equal to 3½ of Akbar’s rupees. There was also a smaller gold coin known as fanām, and subsidiary coins of silver and copper were in circulation, but their names and values are unimportant for our present purpose. In addition to this indigenous coinage, the commerce of the coast was concerned largely with coins of foreign origin. In the sixteenth century, as throughout history, India may be said to have traded largely for cash, that is to say, the precious metals, coined or uncoined, were among the principal imports, and any one who wished to take part in external commerce required to know something of the currencies of various countries, and to be familiar with at least the larin, the sequin, the ducat, and the Spanish real-of-eight, as well as with the somewhat complicated system maintained by the Portuguese at Goa.

The larin was Persian money, and reached India in large quantities through the trade with that country. It was not a coin in the ordinary sense of the word, but a bent rod or bar of silver stamped at the end, and was worth rather less than half of one of Akbar’s rupees. The sequin (or chickeen) was a Venetian gold coin, worth about four of Akbar’s rupees, and travelled to India by way of the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf, in connection with the overland trade to Europe. Italian ducats came by the same route ; the gold ducat was worth nearly as much as the sequin, while the silver ducat was of about half that value, or say two of Akbar’s rupees. Spanish reals-of-eight,¹ on the other hand, reached India chiefly by sea : their value was about the same as that of the silver ducat.

The Goanese currency is a very intricate subject, mainly because successive Governors manipulated the coinage to meet financial exigencies, but while fluctuations in value were Frequent, the general trend was steadily towards depreciation. The system was based on a unit known as the real, which was much smaller than the Spanish unit bearing the same name, being, in fact, only a small fraction of a penny, but the standard coin was the pardao, which was at first identical with the pagoda. By about the year 1600, however, the real, and with it the gold pardao, had depreciated, so that the pagoda was then worth 570 instead of 360 reis,¹ and thus the gold pardao was at this time equivalent to about 2¼ of Akbar’s rupees, while another pardao, not made of gold, and having a slightly lower value, had also come into existence.In practice a pardao of this period may be thought of as two rupees, but when a gold pardao is specified, it may be taken as 2¼ rupees.

I have not found sufficient data to furnish even a rough measure of the purchasing power of these coins in Southern India. Various travellers note that prices were low in Surat and the neighbourhood, but it must be remembered that Europe was at this time experiencing the effects of the continued influx of silver from America ; prices, that is to say, were rising in Europe, and it is exceedingly diffi- cult to make out the particular standards in the minds of individual travellers. Some figures given by the first English merchants suggest that prices were much higher at Surat than in Northern India, but it would be unsafe to base conclusions on these isolated transactions, especially as the merchants were strangers, and it is not improbable that they were cheated. Further, as will appear in a subsequent chapter, trade at the seaports was marked by very sudden fluctuations, so that it would be dangerous to use figures which may represent purchases made in exceptional circumstances ; it is probable that prices were higher on the coast than up the country, but until further materials become available, the difference cannot be stated quantitatively.

It will be noticed that I have not attempted to give precise equivalents for the various coins circulating in India. The omission is deliberate, for under the methods of transacting business which prevailed coins did not pass current as a matter of course; weighing and assaying were necessary elements of ordinary transactions, and the value of a particular coin or parcel of coins must often have been a matter of negotiation. Foreign coins were received at the value of the metal they contained, and consequently new coins were worth more than those which had suffered by wear. Indian coins of former rulers were received on the same terms, and even cur- rent issues were liable to discount if for any reason the amount of metal fell below the accepted standard. Some idea of the position can be formed from the long account of Akbar’s efforts to improve it contained in the Ain-i Akbari. The rules for valuing current coins were modified on several occasions, and as is so frequently the case, it is not possible to accept Abul Fazl’s courtly assurance that the latest regulations were uni- versally approved ; we can take them as proof of the existence of malpractices, but we cannot be certain that they operated to ensure honesty throughout the Empire. They indicate that officers of the mint were suspected of issuing light coins, that the official treasurers reduced the weight of coins re- ceived by them, and that dealers followed the same practice, and also used false weights ; they show further that treasurers occasionally insisted on the State dues being paid in coins of particular denominations, presumably those of which they and their friends possessed a temporary local monopoly, and that the rules regulating the permissible deficiency in weight were occasionally ignored. It is not surprising there- fore to find that the business of dealing in money was highly developed throughout India, and that travellers notice the presence of expert dealers in all centres of trade.

In order then to realise the conditions in which business was carried on, it is well to bear in mind that coins were not at this period regarded as fixed standards of value, but rather as a form of merchandise, of which the equivalent in other commodities depended upon the weight and the quantity of the coins tendered. A merchant who offered payment in money was in fact entering on a particular kind of barter ; he knew that the other party to the bargain would usually accept the money, but he knew also that it would be accepted as so much metal, and that the amount of metal would have to be determined before the transaction was completed. To readers familiar with modern conditions this method of doing business appears to be exceedingly cumbrous and incon- venient, but it would probably be a mistake to suppose that the merchants of the sixteenth century looked at it in the same light: I cannot recall any complaints regarding it in the narratives of Europeans, while to Indians the arrangement would be familiar, and must, I think, have been regarded as a natural incident of their business. The various coins which they handled had in their eyes approximate relations, based on the quantity of gold, or of silver, which they might be expected to contain, but the precise value of the coins passing in a particular transaction would have to be ascertained.

It is these approximate relations which I have endeavoured to indicate. The student who wishes to obtain a general view of the economic condition of India at this period will probably find it simplest to think in terms of Akbar’s rupee. So far as Upper India is concerned, he need then remember merely that the rupee was worth about forty copper dams, and that the ordinary gold mohur was worth about ten rupees, but that the purchasing power of these coins was about six times as great as in the present century. Travelling southwards, he will meet the silver mahmudi (about $2 \frac{1}{2}$ to the rupee), and the gold varāhu or pagoda worth about $3 \frac{1}{2}$ rupees. Of foreign silver coins, it is sufficient to remember that a larin was about the same as a mahmudi, while Italian ducats and Spanish reals-of-eight were worth about two rupees in each case. Among gold coins the sequin and the ducat were each equiva- lent to about four rupees; and lastly the Goanese pardao was worth about $2 \frac{1}{4}$ rupees if of gold, but otherwise about two rupees. Of the purchasing power of these coins in the South of India all that can at present be said is that the nominal value should not be increased to the same extent as that of the northern rupee; the proportion by which it should be raised must remain doubtful until further data come to light.

Authorities for Chapter II

Section I.— For the Vijayanagar administration, see Sewell, 373 et passim. For the Deccan, see Barboa, 289, and Thévenot, 279, 301–307. Akbar’s system must be studied in the Ain; some of the difficulties in that work are discussed in a paper by Mr. Yusuf Ali and myself in Journal R.A.S., January 1918, and I follow the conclusions there given. References on the organisation of the Mogul Army will be given in the next chapter.

SECTION 2.—For bribery, see in particular Sewell, 380 ; Letters Received, iv. 9 ; Roe, 263. Manrique (lxxi.) tells how when he had been arrested by the Kotwal of Multan, a way of release was found " through some mollifying gratifications." For the value of influence, see Roe, 416, 436, and Letters Received, vi. 117. For the risk of appealing to the Emperor, see Finch in Purchas, I. iv. 439. The account of an instance of communal pressure is from Letters Received, iv. 320, while details as to execution are mentioned in Letters Received, i. 25 ; vi. 117, and in De Laet, 124.

SECTION 3.—Akbar’s regulations for the Kotwal are in Book III. of the Ain (translation, ii. 41). The reference to the Kotwal of Golconda is in Thévenot, 290 : police administration in Vijayanagar is referred to in Major, 30, and Sewell, 381. The account of the actual working of the system is in Thévenot, 59, 60 : the quotation regarding punishments will be found in Tuzuk (translation, i. 432). Regarding the danger of lawlessness, see in particular Roe, 295. Salbank’s account of Agra is in Letters Received, vi. 198.

SECTION 4.—The only direct mention I have found of police administra- tion in the country is the statement in the Ain (translation, ii. 47), that should there be no Kotwal, the Revenue Officer (Amalguzar) should perform his duties. The inland portion of Finch’s travels begins on I. iv. 424 of Purchas. The other authorities quoted are Varthema, 130 ; Sewell, 381 (for Nuniz) ; Purchas, II. x. 1735, 1736 (for Fitch) ; I. iv. 484 (for Withington) ; I. iv. 520 (for Steel and Crowther) ; Letters Received, ii. 254, and passim (for the roads from Surat) ; v. 323 (for Golconda) ; Terry, 160, 171 ; Hawkins, 434 ; and Tuzuk, i. 7.

SECTION 5.—Akbar’s orders regarding customs and river dues are in the Ain (translation, i. 281). The experience of the English merchants on the Indus is told at length in Purchas, I. iv. 497 ; Flores’ advice is in Letters Received, iv. 78, while Roe’s complaint is on p. 68 of his Journal. I have not found a clear statement of the official charges levied by the Portuguese, but in practice they were matters of negotiation : as Pyrard says (transla- tion, ii. 240), the Governors let everything pass for money. Pyrard’s account of the Calicut custom-house is i. 238. Jahangir’s orders as to transit dues are in Tuzuk (translation, i. 7). For dues and extortion on inland vessels, see Hay, 730 ; for exemptions, see Monserrate, 581 ; for transit dues at a later period, see Mundy, ii. 39, and passim ; Thévenot, 15 ; Tavernier, 81, 305, and Manrique, lxxi. For duties in Vijayanagar, see Sewell, 364, 366, and Hay, 738 ; for the Deccan, see Thévenot, 279. Charges for escorts are mentioned in various places, e.g. Letters Received, iv. 78.

Section 6.— The quotation regarding the need for large profits is from Letters Received, v. 116. The Mogul rule of inheritance is discussed at some length by Bernier (p. 116). Tavernier (ii. 15 and passim) insists on the incentive to hoarding furnished by the rule, and Manrique (lxxi) gives a vivid picture of its actual working. The expressions quoted in the text regarding it are from Terry, 391, and Bernier, 229.

SECTION 7.-For Akbar’s maund, see Thomas, Chronicles, 430; Purchas, I. iii. 218; Letters Received, iii. 1, 84; De Laet, 137. The Surat maunds are mentioned frequently in Letters Received, e.g. i. 30; those of Goa are shown in the table prefixed to Garcia da Orta. For the candy and the bahar, see Hobson-Jobson under those words; for the quintal, see (e.g.) Letters Received, i. 30. For references to the livre, see Tavernier, 290 and passim; I take its value from the Grande Encyclopédie (Art. Livre). For the gaz, see Ain, translation, ii. 58 ff., and Useful Tables, 87 ff. For the covad, see Letters Received, i. 34, ii. 230.

Akbar’s coinage is dealt with at length in the first Book of the Ain (translation, i. 16 ff.). The rarity of gold coins is referred to by various writers, e.g. Terry, 112, 113, and Tavernier, ii. 14 ff.; Tavernier illustrates the difference in ratio of silver to copper. For the mahmudi, see Letters Received, i. 34, and passim. The system of bills of exchange is dealt with fully in Tavernier, ii. 24, and referred to incidentally in most of the English accounts, e.g. Letters Received, ii. 228, 266; iii. 281. The purchasing power of the rupee is discussed in a paper by the present writer in the Journal of the R.A.S., for October 1918, pp. 375 ff.

For the money current in Southern India, see Hobson-Jobson, under Pagoda, Fanam, Pardao, Chick, Larin, and other notices referred to therein. For the Goanese currency, see also Whiteway, ch. iv., and Mr. Longworth Dames’ notes to Barbosa (translation, i. 191). References to low prices on and near the coast will be found in Terry, 175, and Della Valle, 42. For prices paid by the English at Surat in 1611, see Letters Received, i. 141. For malpractices in connection with the coinage, see in particular Ain, translation, i. 32 ff.

Notes