Since, during this time other companies—established by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Danish—were similarly expanding in the region, the English Company's unremarkable beginnings on coastal India offered no clues to what would become a lengthy presence on the Indian subcontinent.

[25] Although Lord North himself wanted the company's territories to be taken over by the British state,[24] he faced determined political opposition from many quarters, including some in the City of London and the Parliament of Great Britain.

[26] The Court of Directors of the company were required under the act to submit all communications regarding civil, military, and revenue matters in India for scrutiny by the British government.

[32] Mindful of the reports of abuse and corruption in Bengal by Company servants, the India Act itself noted numerous complaints that "'divers Rajahs, Zamindars, Talukdars, and landholders' had been unjustly deprived of 'their lands, jurisdictions, rights, and privileges'".

[34] Although the supervisory powers of the Governor-General-in-Council in Bengal (over Madras and Bombay) were extended—as they were again in the Charter Act 1793—the subordinate presidencies continued to exercise some autonomy until both the extension of British possessions into becoming contiguous and the advent of faster communications in the next century.

[36] From 1784 onwards, the British government had the final word on all major appointments in India; a candidate's suitability for a senior position was often decided by the strength of his political connections rather than that of his administrative ability.

[38] Although Burke's speeches at the trial drew applause and focused attention on India, Hastings was eventually acquitted, due in part to the revival of nationalism in Britain in the wake of the French Revolution.

[38] Soon rumblings appeared amongst merchants in London that the monopoly granted to the East India Company in 1600, intended to facilitate its competition against Dutch and French in a distant region, was no longer needed.

[41] On being awarded the diwani or overlordship of Bengal following the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the East India Company found itself short of trained administrators, especially those familiar with local custom and law; tax collection was consequently farmed out.

This uncertain foray into land taxation by the company, may have gravely worsened the impact of a famine that struck Bengal in 1769–70, in which between seven and ten million people—or between a quarter and third of the presidency's population—may have died.

[46] The zamindars themselves were often unable to meet the increased demands that the company had placed on them;[53] consequently, many defaulted, and by one estimate, up to one-third of their lands were auctioned during the first two decades following the permanent settlement.

This was, in part, a consequence of the turmoil of the Anglo-Mysore Wars, which had prevented the emergence of a class of large landowners; in addition, Munro and others felt that ryotwari was closer to traditional practice in the region and ideologically more progressive, allowing the benefits of Company rule to reach the lowest levels of rural society.

Consequently, these soldiers dined in separate facilities; in addition, overseas service, considered polluting to their caste, was not required of them, and the army soon came to recognise Hindu festivals officially.

That changed after 1813, as the forces of reform in the home country, especially evangelical religion, Whiggish political outlook, and Utilitarian philosophy worked together to make the company an agent of Anglicization and modernisation.

[74] After gaining the right to collect revenue in Bengal in 1765, the Company largely ceased importing gold and silver, which it had hitherto used to pay for goods shipped back to Britain.

[75] In addition, as under Mughal Empire rule, land revenue collected in the Bengal Presidency helped finance the company's wars in other parts of India.

[79] This led many farmers in India to switch to cultivating cotton as a quick cash crop; however, with the end of the war in 1865, the demand plummeted again, creating another downturn in the agricultural economy.

Under the charter, the Supreme Court, moreover, had the authority to exercise all types of jurisdiction in the region of Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha, with the only caveat that in situations where the disputed amount was in excess of Rs.

Both the Act and the charter said nothing about the relation between the judiciary (Supreme Court) and the executive branch (Governor-General); equally, they were silent on the Adālats (both Diwāni and Nizāmat) created by Warren Hastings just the year before.

Hastings' premature attempt to appoint the Chief Justice, Sir Elijah Impey, an old schoolmate from Winchester, to the bench of the Sadr Diwāni Adālat, only complicated the situation further.

Furthermore, it headed off future legal turf wars by prohibiting the Supreme Court any jurisdiction in matters of revenue (Diwāni) or Regulations of the Government enacted by the British Parliament.

A few decades later a related perspective appeared among the governed population, one that was expressed by the conservative Bengali reformer Radhakanta Deb as the "duty of the Rulers of Countries to preserve and Customs and the religions of their subjects".

These lines, which weighed 1,250 pounds per mile, were held aloft by fifteen-foot lengths of bamboo, planted into the ground at equal intervals—200 to the mile—and covered with a layer each of coal tar and pitch for insulation.

The wood used for the support consisted of teak, sal, fir, ironwood, or blackwood (Terminalia elata), and was either fashioned into whole posts, or used in attachments to iron screw-piles or masonry columns.

Although the Government of India had no capital expenditure other than the provision of the underlying land free of charge, it had the onus of continuing to provide the 5 percent return in the event of net loss, and soon all anticipation of profits would fall by the wayside as the outlays would mount.

The work, therefore, proceeded in fits and starts—many practical trials followed by a final construction that was undertaken with great caution and care—producing an outcome that was later criticised as being "built to a standard which was far in excess of the needs to the time".

A little farther north, on the Tungabhadra river, the 16th century Vijayanagara ruler, Krishna Deva Raya, had constructed several weirs; these too would be extended under British administration.

[103] Contemplated first by Col. John Russell Colvin in 1836, it did not at first elicit much enthusiasm from its eventual architect Sir Proby Thomas Cautley, who balked at idea of cutting a canal through extensive low-lying land in order to reach the drier upland destination.

[citation needed] In 1839, the Governor General of India, Lord Auckland, with the Court's assent, granted funds to Cautley for a full survey of the swath of land that underlay and fringed the projected course of the canal.

Auckland's successor as Governor General, Lord Ellenborough, appeared less receptive to large-scale public works, and for the duration of his tenure, withheld major funds for the project.