The Administration of the East India Company: A History of Indian Progress

About The Book : I ofeer this volume to the public as a contribution to the general' stock of information relating to India and her affairs—information which in the present juncture, it is very desirable to possess. It contains much that is scattered over a great number of printed books, and much besides that is not to be found in any printed books. It will be seen that it is written almost entirely in a narrative form —that there is little of the disquisitional and controversial in it—and that I have not attempted to elucidate the great question of the future government of India, except by throwing on it such, light as is derived from illustrations of the past. Perhaps, indeed the volume may best be described as a series of historical illustrations of Indian Government, arranged with some regard to completeness and uniformity of design, but not at all pretending to the dignity either of perfect history of the internal administration of India, or a finished picture of Indian Institutions. The exigencies of time and space have compelled me to pass hastily over the consideration of many matters, of the interest and importance of winch I am fully sensible, and in one or two instances I have been necessitated to throw into an Appendix papers illustrative of certain topics of inquiry of which I had intended to treat in the body of the work. The subject of Indian Administration, indeed, is so vast; it branches out into so many different channels; and the materials at my disposal for its illustration have been so ample, that the more I have drawn upon them the further off I have seemed from their exhaustion.