particular degree of accuracy, that could not be expected if the work were printed in England, he has determined that the book fhould be printed here.

I have received directions to have an exact copy in manufcript made, and as parts of it are finished, I fhall, with your permiffion, do myself the honour of fending them to you, that you may be fo obliging as to give such orders to the superintendents of the Company's press for printing the work, as you may wish to be attended to.

I am, with great refpect, &c.

(Signed) EDWARD HAY, Secretary to the Government.

Council Chamber, 11th June, 1793

THE PREFACE.

It is a maxim in the science of legislation and government, that Laws are of no avail without manners, or, to explain the fentence more fully, that the best intended legislative provifions would have no beneficial effect even at first, and none at all in a fhort course of time, unless they were congenial to the difpofition and habits, to the religious prejudices, and approved immemorial ufages, of the people, for whom they were enacted; especially if that people univerfally and fincerely believed, that all their ancient ufages and established rules of conduct had the fanction of an actual revelation from heaven: the legislature of Britain having fhown, in compliance with this maxim, an intention to leave the natives of these Indian provinces in poffeffion of their own Laws, at least on the titles of contracts and inheritances, we may humbly prefume, that all future provifions, for the adminiftration of justice and government in India, will be conformable, as far as the natives are affected by them, to the manners and opinions of the natives themselves; an object, which cannot poffibly be attained, until those manners and opinions can be fully and accurately known. These confiderations, and a few others more immediately within my province, were my principal motives for wishing to know, and have induced me

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