PREFACE.

ONCEIVING myself entitled, by my original proposals, to felect for discusfion in these volumes any fubject intimately connected with the ANTIQUITIES OF INDIA; and as none, I prefume, can be more gratifying to the general clafs of my readers than thofe that equally concern India and Britain, I have selected the venerable Order of Druids, their doctrines, and rites, which have fuch an immediate and wonderful affinity with those of the Brahmins; and the ancient commerce of the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks, carried on, prior to the Chriftian æra, with India on the one hand, and Britain on the other, for their confideration in this volume. It was not my intention, indeed, in thefe Refeatches,

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Refearches, to have defcended to periods fabfequent to that æra, but my gratitude to the Honourable Court of Eaft-India Directors, for their liberal patronage of the Hiftory of Hindoftan, my anxious defire to make this work effentially ufeful to gentlemen going out in a commercial capacity to India, and the important circumstance of the revival, at the present day, of that particular branch of its traffic with the Eaft, which rendered this ifland fo celebrated in antiquity, I mean the TIN of the Cornifh mines—a measure which reflects fuch honour both on the patriotifin and wisdom of the Directors, and is of fuch material confequence, at this momentous crifis, by retaining fo much bullion in the country, and giving bread to fo many thousands of difteffed miners: thefe united reafons have induced me to deviate fomewhat from my propofed plan, and to fketch out fuch a fummary but clear view of the ancient and prefent commercial connection of Britain with India, as may prove at once gratifying to the fcholar and useful to the merchant.

The Afiatic origin of the Druids has long been an acknowledged point in the world of antiquaries. Mr. Reuben Burrow, the great practical aftronomer of India, was the firft

perfon,