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fruits unto their ripeness; and in reducing these loose papers into 



this order." 



Such were the pious and liberal sentiments of Hackluyt, on 

 the publication of his work upwards of two hundred years ago. 

 Mine is now brought to a conclusion; after a period of forty- 

 seven years, since my first juvenile attempts in the descriptive 

 letters and drawings, which constitute the foundation of these me- 

 moirs. During that time the most extraordinary events have oc- 

 curred in India; many of which are alluded to in the preceding 

 pages. 



It has not been my object, neither have I talents to discuss the 

 political, commercial, and military systems in British India; the 

 aggrandisement of that part of the empire has of late years been 

 rapid and wonderful. Reverting to the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, we find the English possessions in India consisted of two 

 factories, situated on the banks of the Hughly river; with an 

 ensign's guard of thirty men, stationed there for the protection of 

 property ; they were limited to this number by the jealous policy 

 of the emperor Aurungzebe and his predecessors, who would 

 not allow the factors to build even the slightest garden wall, from 

 a fear of its being converted into a fortification. Such was the 

 commencement of the British establishment in Bengal. 



In the year 1638, Mr. Langhorne, agent for the English East In- 

 dia Company, purchased the village of Madras-patana, with a small 

 district on the sea-coast of Coromandel, from the Hindoo rajah, 

 for the East India Company. This village was soon after sur- 

 rounded by a wall, and a castle called Eort St. George was erected 



