PREFACE. 
XIX 
maritime observations of the learned professors and eminent navigators, 
whom my father successively knew during their official visits to the 
Island.—I then proceed to state and explain the connection of India 
with the Isle of France, in all its different epochas; which conducts 
me through a long succession of curious and interesting events, to 
the death of Tippoo Saib, which rendered England the mistress of 
Indostan. 
Such is the nature of my work: nor shall I endeavour to deprecate 
criticism, by stating the difficulties with which I have struggled, in 
bringing this volume into the form which it now bears.—It would 
indeed, have been less liable to the censure of the critic, if I had 
written under more auspicious circumstances ; and it would have been 
more deserving the attention of the politician and the philosopher, if I 
could have had recourse to the books and authentic papers, which 
are to be found in the libraries and public offices of Paris; but still, I 
am rather sanguine in the hope of its being generally acknowledged, 
that I have enlarged the acquaintance of Great Britain, and of the 
public in general, with a very important part of the Eastern world. 
I add the following letter of my father, in order to authenticate his 
original design of collecting those materials, which form a very consi¬ 
derable part of this History. 
C 2 
