DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.34827#0069
1817-18.
53
tempt you to do so now, by the prospect of the good your
advice might do, even during a fortnight's stay, in the present
stage of our progress. 'Yours most sincerely,
' M. ELPHINSTONE.'
'Poona, Feb. 28, 1819.
' My dear Strachey,—An unaccountable suspension of our
correspondence has taken place. Many Europe letters were
taken during the war with the Peshwa, and yours may have
been among them. On the other hand, I for a long time wrote
no letters that could not go into quills, and for a long time
after that I wrote no letters at all. I, however, began at least
two to you; and to prevent another failure I shall write this
while waiting for the hour to keep an engagement as if you
were at Bombay. I wish I had anything like room and time to
write to you about this new acquisition, and still more that you
had both time and inclination to write to me. All here is as
settled as Benares. There are infinite details, but little general
politics ; and all my leisure, except what is wasted in eating
and drinking, talking, and yawning at others talking, &c. &c.,
is spent in considering what is to be done, in judicial and
revenue matters, especially the former. My first plan, and it
certainly was the wisest as well as the easiest, was to leave
everything as I found it, and make no innovation until I saw
how the land lay ; but when I did begin to see how the land
lay I found the navigation rather more intricate than I had
expected. I left civil and criminal justice as I found them (as
I found them in theory and name, at least); the former ad-
ministered by punchayets, the latter by the collector, to which
in one province (Candeish) I ventured to add a punchayet as a
sort of attempt at a jury. The police was managed, and not
ill, by the revenue officers, assisted by the village establish-
ments, the Beels in our pay, and the host of Sebundies, whom
we kept up that they might neither rob nor starve. I have no
great fault to hnd with the criminal justice or police, but in
the civil I found that punchayets could never be assembled
without much difficulty. When they did assemble they did
53
tempt you to do so now, by the prospect of the good your
advice might do, even during a fortnight's stay, in the present
stage of our progress. 'Yours most sincerely,
' M. ELPHINSTONE.'
'Poona, Feb. 28, 1819.
' My dear Strachey,—An unaccountable suspension of our
correspondence has taken place. Many Europe letters were
taken during the war with the Peshwa, and yours may have
been among them. On the other hand, I for a long time wrote
no letters that could not go into quills, and for a long time
after that I wrote no letters at all. I, however, began at least
two to you; and to prevent another failure I shall write this
while waiting for the hour to keep an engagement as if you
were at Bombay. I wish I had anything like room and time to
write to you about this new acquisition, and still more that you
had both time and inclination to write to me. All here is as
settled as Benares. There are infinite details, but little general
politics ; and all my leisure, except what is wasted in eating
and drinking, talking, and yawning at others talking, &c. &c.,
is spent in considering what is to be done, in judicial and
revenue matters, especially the former. My first plan, and it
certainly was the wisest as well as the easiest, was to leave
everything as I found it, and make no innovation until I saw
how the land lay ; but when I did begin to see how the land
lay I found the navigation rather more intricate than I had
expected. I left civil and criminal justice as I found them (as
I found them in theory and name, at least); the former ad-
ministered by punchayets, the latter by the collector, to which
in one province (Candeish) I ventured to add a punchayet as a
sort of attempt at a jury. The police was managed, and not
ill, by the revenue officers, assisted by the village establish-
ments, the Beels in our pay, and the host of Sebundies, whom
we kept up that they might neither rob nor starve. I have no
great fault to hnd with the criminal justice or police, but in
the civil I found that punchayets could never be assembled
without much difficulty. When they did assemble they did