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272
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1911.
to follow from this that Vijayanagar taxation was about seven times that of the British, or about 42 per cent., an estimate that agrees with the former inference that the later Vijayanagar kings quite disregarded Madhava's injunction of th of the gross produce paid in cash, and bad in practice taken 50 per cent. of it. It would be much more, if we deduct from the present British revenue the amounts realised from the cesses and that derived from land that has since been reclaimed from the proverbial forest land of Southern India, and exclude also that resulting from the territories that form integral portions of the Presidency bat which during the times of the Hindu kingdom were only nominally part of it and as such in fact brought no revendes at all. No wonder then that the renters of lands, of whom there were in all more than 200 in number, 52 were tyrannical and that the common people, as Noniz feelingly complains, suffered much hardship. It would further appear from a Vijayanagar inscription of about A. D. 145553 that the fees of the village establishment were paid from the share of the cultivator. That inscription records the exempting of a number of villages from the taxes that they usually paid to the Government. Those enumerated are " the prime-minister's quit-rent, the karnam's quit-rent, the dues on animals, trees and tanks, and all other dues "-how many more we do not know. In all probability, most of the petty imposts of the Chola period continued andisturbed throughout the Vijayanagar and the succeeding periods of Muhammadan rule when they were unduly multiplied and absorbed in the general system-Mobaturpha and Sayer. At any rate, tolls seem to have brought a good amount to the Vijayanagar exchequer. Of the principal streets of Nagalûpûr, the present town of Hospet, in Bellary District, built by Kšishṇaraya in honour of his favourite wife, Naniz writes,56 "it yields forty-two thousand pardaos of duties for things which enter into it, the duties in this land being very great; since nothing comes through the gates that does not pay duty, even men and women, as well as headloads and all merchandise." of the gates leading to "the city of Bisnaga," he says,56 " this gate is rented out for 12,000 pardaos each year, and no man can enter it without paying just what the renters ask, country folk as well as foreigners.” Nor could any one well evade this exaction, since the gate was well guarded by 1,000 men.57
(To be continuer.)
GOVERNOR RICHARD BOURCHIER.
BY WILLIAM FOSTER. THE acquisition by the India Office of a half-length portrait (attributed to George Dance. Junior) of Richard Bourchier, Governor of Bombay, revives the memory of a half-forgotten worthy, and will perhaps justify the publication of a few notes upon a career that presents many points of interest.
There were Boarchiers or Bowchers in India in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, and probably the sabject of this sketch was related to one or other of these; but the connexion has not been traced. Nor has it been discovered when and where he was born. Mr. Forrest, however, in his Selections from the Bombay Records, Home Series (Vol. I, p. xliv) says that Bourebier was sixty-one when he became Governor of Bombay; and this would indicate 1688 or 1689 as the year of his birth.
His name does not occur in the East India Company's records until October, 1718, when he applied to the Directors for permission to reside at Madras As & Free Mercbant. His request was granted on November 26 ; and on the 3rd of the following month he was
* Sewell's A Forg. Emp., 889. 16 lbid. 363-84.
1 South Indian Inscriptions i. 119. # 10:0., 366.
Sewell, loc. cit., 398 and 1. n. 1. bT Ibid.
