whom, from their better acquaintance with the social 

 systems of Oriental peoples, I might naturally have 

 looked for a closer sympathy with the subjects I 

 ventured to discuss, who begged me to publish a 

 second edition. The book had no literary merit, 

 and my object in publishing it was not to court 

 literary fame. I sought rather to render my ex- 

 periences of a country and a people, and their insti- 

 tutions, which it is admitted on all sides Englishmen 

 find it so very difficult to understand, useful to the 

 many, who, whether resident in India or elsewhere, 

 have not had equally good opportunities of observa- 

 tion with myself. But the demand for the work had 

 not been such as to induce me to suppose that it 

 would be widely read, and I did not therefore fur- 

 ther obtrude my opinions on the public. 



Circumstances however have altered materially 

 since then. When my Review was written (1862), 

 the operatives of the manufacturing districts of 

 England were suffering from the severities of the 

 famine which followed the stoppage of the cotton 

 supplies which ensued on the breaking out of the 

 American war. A cry had been raised in England 

 with the view of inducing Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment to compel the natives of India to grow suffi- 



