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 vi PREFACE,

atall, ought rather to increase the interest of the British reader, who is not only introduced to new scenes and new modes of social existence, but follows his countrymen step by step, and sees thein in a new sphere displaying the same unrivalled talents, civil and military, the same indomitable courage and perseverance, the same enlightened, humane, and generous spirit, which have placed Great Britain at the head of modern nations, and given her the largest and mightiest empire that the world has yet beheld. While India was placed under a kind of tutelage, and those intrusted with its administration, instead of encouraging, systematically repressed the public curiosity, there was doubtless some excuse for a fecling of apathy in regard to its affairs; but now that the anomalous form of government has been abolished, and the Queen, ruling India in her own uame without any adventitious intervention, has called upon her loving subjects to unite with her in developing its resources, as one of the most effectual means of promoting the general welfare of all her dominions, how can the call be properly responded to, unless the actual

circumstances of the country, and the whvle course of events by which these have been

formed—in other words, all the details of its history—are carefully studied?

A subject so important and so attractive as that of India could not fail to engage the pens of many writers, and accordingly a nunber of works relating to it has appeared, some of them by distinguished men, who bore uo unimportant part in many of the trans- actions which they narrate. To all these works, however, there is one serious objection, which, without nmpugning their merits, goes to prove that so fur from exhausting the subject, they have left important blanks, which deprive them of the character of complete histories. Some of them are professedly confined to particular periods or particular provinces ; while others of a more general description either omit part of the earlier history, or after bringing it down as far as was practicable at the time, stop short at the very period when it becomes at once most interesting and most instructive. The present work, which differs from them in plan, and is also imtended to be of a more popular character, was undertaken in the belief that if written after due research, in a perspicu- ous style, and with strict impartiality, it might supply a want which had long been felt, and to which recent events had given much additional urgency. It is, as its name implies, a Comprehensive History of India, beginning with its earliest period, aud continued, without the known oinission of any transaction of importance, to the present time. In composing it, the author has not trusted to previous compilations, but derived his materials as much as possible from original and official sources. How far he has succeeded, it remains for his readers to decide. The only part of the work ou which he ventures to anticipate the judgment of the public is that of the maps, plans, and numerous illustra- tions, which, independently of their merit as embellishments, bring all the leading topics of the history—its campaigns, its battle-fields, its cities, and other localities, and even its most celebrated personages—immediately before the eye, in a manner which not only does much credit to those employed upon them, but must greatly facilitate the intelligent perusal of the history itself.