HONORABLE SIRS, A work professedly undertaken with the view to promote the welfare, and to facilitate the progress, of those young gentlemen who may, from time to time, be appointed to situations under your several Presidencies, will, I flatter myself, receive from your Honorable Court that encouragement the importance of the subject solicits, and to which my own good intentions may justly offer a claim. Under your auspices, my labors cannot fail to prove of public utility, as well as to reward

In the volumes now offered to the public, it has been my zealous endeavour to supply those minutiæ and details, which have not, in any distinct manner, been heretofore tendered to its consideration. A residence of more than twenty years in Bengal, during which period I had every opportunity of visiting the several districts under that presidency, has enabled me to afford considerable insight into a variety of topics, which, whether to the statesman, the merchant, the military, or the civil chara

The consideration, that great numbers of young gentlemen proceed to India without the smallest idea of the customs, &c. peculiar to that country whither they are adventuring; and, that the want of some previous instruction has often proved of the greatest inconvenience; first induced me to assume the pen, for the purpose of submitting, to those under such circumstances, the result of a long residence in Bengal. When it is understood, that, merely owing to the absence of any experienced f