A History of Assam c19.24

c19.24

Sylhet passed into the hands of the British in 1765, together with the rest of Bengal. Thirteen years later, a Mr. Robert Lindsay became Collector, after he had been only two years in the country, by means of an intrigue in the Dacca Council, which was at that time in charge of Sylhet; and his vivacious account of its condition at that time is reproduced in the *Lives of the Lindsays*.* At that time there was little silver or copper in circulation, and the revenue of the district amounting to Rs. 2,50,000, was all paid in cowries, or small shells, of which 5,120 went to the rupee. The management of this ponderous currency was most troublesome; and its storage and transport to Dacca, where the cowries were sold by auction, "occasioned a cost of no less than ten per cent. exclusive of depredations on the passage down." In those days the Company's servants were allowed to trade on their own account. Mr. Lindsay soon made a fortune by dealing in lime, while he, at the same time, relieved the officials at Dacca of the vexatious business of disposing of a cargo of 1,280 millions of cowries. He obtained the lease of the lime quarries in the hills below Cherrapunji from the Khāsi chiefs who owned them, used the cowries to meet the charges for extracting and burning the stone, and paid his revenue at Dacca in rupees realized from the sale of the lime in the markets of Bengal.