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CEYLON. 
plan of registering estates, hereafter mentioned, persons with sala- 
ries must be appointed, who might equally have served for school- 
masters. 
It seems extraordinary, that while the pious zeal of many worthy 
men for the conversion of the Hindoos should have induced them 
to send missionaries to India, where no rational hopes can be enter- 
tained of success, and where nothing but mischief is likely to follow 
the attempt, Ceylon should have been overlooked, where complete 
success might fairly be expected. The Cingalese have abandoned 
the strong prejudices, which bind the Hindoos so closely to the 
Brahminical religion; and their attachment to casts is much more 
an affair of vanity than of religion. No incapacity or disgrace attends 
the profession of Christianity. If the plans introduced by the Dutch 
were quietly and steadily pursued, there is good reason to believe 
that the whole Cingalese nation might, in time, be converted. It is 
painful to remark, that the economy of the British government 
should have diminished these hopes. Mr. North, in a tour round the 
coast, found that in many parts, paganism was regaining its lost 
ground through the absence of clergymen. The number established 
by the Dutch should be augmented, as the business of converting 
would be carried on more safely under the eye of government, 
than by missionaries, whose zeal has too frequently outrun their 
prudence. The reduction of the clergy has been attended with 
another evil, that of the increase of concubinage among the Pro- 
testants. In several parts there are no clergymen resident within 
a hundred miles, and the poor people are unable to go so far to get 
married. 
In one instance the British have very properly deviated from the 
