HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE ACCOUNT OF BRITISH INDIA, FROM THE MOST REMOTE PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME: INCLUDING A NARRATIVE OF THE EARLY PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH VOYAGES, THE BY HUGH MURRAY, ESQ., F.R.S.E. JAMES WILSON, ESQ., F.R.S.E. AND M.W.S PREFACE. THE great and increasing favour experienced by this Library has induced the publishers to employ the utmost exertion to make the present work, as it is more extensive than any of its predecessors, still more deserving of public approbation. To imbody in a popular form and moderate compass a full view of the History, the Natural Features, the Political and Social State of BRITISH INDIA, was, they were sensible, a task which could be better accomplished by a combination of varied talents than by any one individual. Under this impression they engaged the co-operation of a number of gentlemen whose abilities and acquirements have raised them to the first eminence in their respective departments of literature and science. These distinguished persons embarked in the undertaking with a full sense of its importance, and each with an ardent zeal to contribute his share in rendering this work more complete than any yet given to the world respecting British India. The publishers trust they may confidently assert that information, derived from the most authentic sources, has been in every instance employed with judicious care. Mr. Murray, author of the historical and descrip tive department, commences with a general account of the grand Natural Features of India, leaving to his scientific coadjutors the task of illustrating them in detail. He then proceeds to exhibit that splendid series of discovery and triumph by which the Portuguese achieved the Maritime Passage to India, and established their sway over a great extent of its shores. These events, which to the importance of truth add the interest of romance, being narrated in voluminous works in a foreign language, were never before combined in a form suited to general perusal. The early Voyages and Settlements of the English also include many incidents characteristic of the enterprise that paved the way for the amazing power at which the nation has now arrived. After the discovery and early trade with India, the next object is its History. This necessarily commences with the Mohammedan invasion, the remotest period concerning which authentic records exist. A comprehensive view is taken of the Revolutions of the Patan and Mogul dynasties, the most splendid in the East, and the story of which is diversified with striking vicissitudes of rise and fall-of grandeur and humiliation-of cruelty and the benevolent exercise of power. Particular attention has been paid to the internal economy of this powerful court; a subject hitherto much overlooked, yet for which ample materials are afforded both by oriental records and by the observations of intelligent European travellers. Attention is next attracted by a train of events which are at once memorable in the military annals |