130 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA

The only other fact which requires mention regarding
this reign is the agrarian instability? which resulted from the
frequency of changes in Assignments. William Hawkins,
the first Englishman to enter into negotiations with
Jahangir, attributed the prevalent lawlessness to the oppression
 which the “clowns,” that is to say, the peasants,
experienced at the hands of the assignees; and he blamed
the system for this evil, writing that

“, man cannot continue half a year in his living, but it is
taken from him and given unto another; or else the King
taketh it for himself (if it be rich ground and likely to yield
much), making exchange for a worse place; or as he is befriended
by the Vazir. By this means he racketh the poor to get from
them what he can, who still thinketh every hour to be put out
of his place. But there are many who continue a long time
in one place, and if they remain but six years their wealth
which they gain is infinite if it be a thing of any sort.”

Hawkins did not write as a mere spectator, for Jahangir
had given him a small appointment, and he had prolonged
business with the Revenue Ministry regarding the allocation
of his Assignment. He mentions that the Minister of the
time was displaced as the result of many complaints made
by noblemen who “could not receive their livings in places
that were good, but in barren and rebellious places, and
that he made a benefit of the good places himself”; but
there is no sign of any change in the system. We may
suspect that Hawkins exaggerated the frequency of transfers,
but that they were frequent appears from other evidence.
Terry, writing a few years after Hawkins, noted that high
officers usually received a remove yearly; and this would
ordinarily involve alteration in their Assignments. The
Dutch writer of the report on Gujarat, which has been
quoted above, said that assignees were “transferred yearly,
or half-yearly, or every two or three years,” and consequently
none of them could “ make any certain calculation in advance
regarding the places which are given them, for to-day they
are masters of a great place, to-morrow they are removed

1 For Hawkins, see Early Travels, 83, 91, 93,
The passage in the Gujarat Report is f. 9 of
Broach. For Pelsaert’s observations. see 64 ff.

114; for Terry, idem, 326.
the chapter dealing with