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since the English possessed it. Surely, then, il may be gradually 

 and peaceably abolished wherever Great Britain extends her in- 

 fluence. Although not one of these infatuated females have im- 

 molated themselves during that long period in Bombay, it is a 

 fact, too well established, that very lately, in the short space of 

 six months, and within the compass of thirty miles round Calcutta, 

 one hundred and fifty women, some of them virgin widows, have 

 sacrificed themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands. To 

 what extent this cruel, destructive, and impolitic system prevails 

 among thirty millions of Hindoos subject to British laws and 

 government, it would be impossible for me to determine; the pro- 

 portion must be painfully great. In this estimate of thirty millions 

 neither Mahomedans, Parsees, nor the warlike tribes and lower 

 castes of Hindoos are included: the calculation is only intended 

 for those classes who, more or less, accede to this destructive tenet. 

 The whole population of the British empire exceeds sixty millions. 



Infanticide, as formerly mentioned, has, within these few years, 

 been exterminated in Guzerat, and thousands of happy mothers, 

 in all succeeding ages, when caressing their infant daughters, will 

 bless the name of Duncan. Surely, therefore, the horrid spec- 

 tacle of female suicide will be for ever abolished: for we must re- 

 collect, as instanced in the vizier of Brodera's wife, it is not only 

 a widow, but a mother, a daughter, an ornament in all the relative 

 situations of life, that thus dedicates herself to the flames. 



The English have introduced the blessings of vaccination 

 among all descriptions of people in Hindostan. By which means 

 the lives of thousands, and tens of thousands, are annually pre- 

 served. In this humane undertaking the brahmins have risen 



