Collection of Native MSS. 445 



have been formed at Madras for the illustration of the 

 history and monuments of the southern provinces of the 

 Deccan, must undoubtedly be included the collection of 

 lative inscriptions and manuscripts of the well - known 

 Colonel Mackenzie, which first attracted the attention of 

 all friends of Oriental science, as also the British Govern- 

 ment, through a memoir^ of Alexander Johnston, Esq. 

 It is a magnificent testimony to the conservative spirit 

 of the British resident among heathen nations, as compared 

 with the barbarous spirit of destruction that characterized 

 the Spanish colonists. From an erroneous idea that they 

 were in so doing promoting the interests of Christianity, 

 these Romanist conquerors destroyed all sculptures and 

 monuments of the pagan Indian races, and, by this fanati- 

 cal Vandalism, at the same time prevented the hand of 

 science from unfolding, as it might have done from these 

 important vestiges, the history of tiiese very remarkable 

 races from the most remote ages. 



In the immense old palace, surrounded by adjacent edifices 

 and gardens, once occupied by the King of the Coromandel 

 coast, the renowned nabob of the Carnatic.. the offices of 

 the English Government employes are at present located. 

 The last of these sovereigns died a few years since, and his 

 former minister receives from the British Government a pen- 

 sion of Rs. 1300 (£130) a month. Great men who have 



* On Colonel Mackenzie's Collection, in the Jom-nal of the Ro^-al Asiatic Society 

 of Great Britain. London, 1835, p. 4, vol. ii. 



