180 
before the reign of Charles I., that our jurisprudence 
fully admitted it in respect to maritime contracjts.'" (Jones, 
3d Disc.) 
Among the useful arts, Agriculture, Weaving^ Em- 
broidering, Dyeing, Calico-printing, Working in Metals, 
and Pottery, the manufactory of Sugar and Indigo, were 
probably most conspicuous. That other useful arts have 
long been very numerous among the Hindoos is evi- 
dent, for Sir Wm. Jones says, " that Europeans enume- 
rate more than two hundred and fifty mechanical arts, 
by which the productions of nature may be variously 
prepared for the convenience and ornament of life ; and 
though the Silpi Sastra (or Sanscrit Collection of Treatises 
on Arts and Manufactures,) reduces them to sixty-four, yet 
Abul Fazl had been assured that the Hindoos reckoned 
three hundred arts and sciences : now their sciences being 
comparatively few, we may conclude that they anciently 
practised at least as many useful arts as ourselves." (Jones, 
10th Disc.) With respect to their skill in many of these 
arts, we may adduce the unexceptionable evidence of the 
late excellent, widely and universally esteemed Bishop 
Heber, " To say that the Hindoos or Musulmans are defi- 
cient in any essential feature of a civilized people, is an 
assertion which I can scarcely suppose to be made by any 
who have lived with them. Their manners are at least as 
pleasing and courteous, as those, of the corresponding- 
stations of life among ourselves ; their houses are larger, 
and, according to their wants and climate, to the full as 
convenient as ours ; their architecture is at least as elegant. 
Nor is it true, that in the mechanic arts they are inferior 
to the general run of European nations. Where they fall 
short of us (which is chiefly in agricultural implements, 
and the mechanics of common life), they are not, so far 
