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THE AFGHAN WAR-THE CONQUEST OF SINDE AND GWALIOR-

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

In addition to a succinct account of the grand natural features of India, contained in the following work, it exhibits that splendid series of discovery and triumph by which the maritime passage to India was achieved, and the Portuguese first established European sway on its shores. These events, which, to the importance of truth, add the interest of romance, being narrated only in voluminous foreign works, have never before been combined in a form suited to general perusal. The early voyages and settlements of the English also include many incidents characteristic of the enterprise that paved the way for the amazing power which the nation has achieved.

Next to the discovery and early trade with India is its history. This commences with the Mohammedan invasion, the remotest period concerning which authentic records exist. A comprehensive view is taken of the revolutions of the Patan and Mogul dynasties, the most splendid in the East, and the story of which is diversified with striking vicissitudes of grandeur and humiliationof cruel and benevolent exercise of power. Particular care has been taken to exhibit the internal economy of this powerful court; a subject hitherto much overlooked, yet for which ample materials are afforded both by Oriental records and by the observations of intelligent European travellers.

M198119

Attention is next invited to a train of events which are at once memorable in the military annals of the world, and deeply interesting to this country. The first of these is the conquest of British India; when a few merchants, with a handful of troops, and struggling against European and native rivalry, subverted all the states which had sprung from the ruins of the Mogul empire, and became arbiters of the destiny of upwards of One Hundred Millions of human beings placed at the opposite extremity of the globe. In this important recital, the incidents which distinguished the several contests are exhibited in one view, instead of passing repeatedly from one to another, and carrying all forward with a regard to nothing but the order of time. This plan, which is followed with such success by Mr. Hallam in his History of the Middle Ages, renders the narrative more perspicuous as well as more interesting.

EDINBURGH, March 1832.

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