812 Mineral Resources of India. [No. 129. 



as has since been done with the help of refined legislation, improved 

 science, public spirit, and the other peculiarities of the nineteenth 

 century. The earlier adventurers to India under the Company's 

 government (I refer to the period between 1750 and 1790) were, a 

 large majority of them, far from being the coarse and vulgar beings 

 it became the fashion subsequently to represent them. Often scions 

 of ancient but decayed houses, men of liberal education, high principle, 

 and intellectual activity, their correspondence exhibits views of com- 

 mercial policy, national wealth, and the duties of the ruler which will 

 be found far in advance of the age even in the mother country. 

 Those who deviate into these records from the monotonous detail of 

 bloodshed and perjury, cruelty in the strong, and treachery in the 

 weak, which constitutes the staple of the written annals of this period, 

 will find the perusal, what Coleridge called, " its own exceeding great 

 reward." They will learn to estimate at its proper worth, the con- 

 temptible defence set up for some acts of Clive and Hastings, that they 

 were suited to the time and the people among whom those statesmen 

 moved. Pure and simple-hearted men will be seen desirous to repair 

 their own fortunes ; but anxious at the same time to be of benefit to 

 the land which enriched them ; working out their plans with patience 

 and perseverance ; oftentimes harassed by the injudicious interference 

 of those in high places ; successfully thwarted by the intrigues of 

 others who considered their interests endangered by the out-turn of 

 the new schemes : and not unfrequently stopped, at the very moment 

 when their labours promised a result, by the imperative mandate of 

 the home authorities. Sometimes retiring to repose on their well- 

 earned affluence, they have been brought out again in advanced age, 

 the mismanagement or dishonesty of others having ruined their for- 

 tunes ; and they will be seen setting themselves cheerfully to rebuild 

 the shattered edifice by some new expedient, the introduction of an 

 exotic growth, a manufacture that might lessen importation from 

 England, or one which might serve as a remittance thither. 



Biographies, like these, are not interesting merely in an antiquarian 

 light for the coming generation, but they have their utility for the pre- 

 sent, shewing us what has been attempted afore of old time ; the causes 

 of failure, and the probability of success, if endeavours be now renewed 

 in the same direction. The discovery and working of coal, iron, copper, 



