tricts ceded in perpetuity to the company, by the treaty with Cofim Ali Khan, in the year 1760. B Its principal towns are Burdwan, Kirpy, Radnapore, Dewangunge, and Ballikiffagur; thefe fupply the taft In- A dia companies with the following fortments of piece goods, viz. doorcas, terrandams, cuttanies, foofies, foot romaals, gurras, sestersoys, santon coupees, cherriderries, chilys, cultas and doofoota's; the capital, Burdwan, may be properly called the center of the trade of the provinces, in tranquil times; this place afforded an annual large vend for the valuable staples of lead, copper, broad cloath, tin, pepper and tootanague. The Puggiah, merchants from Delby and Agra, reforted yearly to this great mart, and would again, if peace was established in the Country: They purchased the above ftaples, either with money, or in barter for opium, tincal, falt petre and horses. C This district produces raw-filk and copofs, fufficient only for manufacturing their foofies, cuttanees and D gurras. The leffer towns manufacfure other inferior fortments of cloth, as feerbunds, gollabunds, &c.-It produces grain equal to the confumption of the people only. The family of this Rajah farmed lands to the amount of four lac per annum. contiguous to the bounds of Calcutta, and had a palace at Beallab, about seven miles South of it-the fort of Buzbudjee on the Ganges, was alfo their property. To the Weft of Burdwan, something Northerly, lie the lands belonging to the family of Rajab Gopaul Sing, of the Raazpoot Bramin Tribe; they poffefs an extent of 160 miles; this district produces an annual revenue of be. tween 30 and 40 lac. Bijnapore, the capital, and chief refidence of the Rajah, which gives a name to the whole diftrict, is also the chief feat of trade. coffaes, and cotton yarn are mand factured for the Europe markets. The revenues of the city of Dacca, (once the capital of Bengal) at a low eftimation amount annually to two khorore, proceeding from customs and duties levied on cloths, grain, oil, ghee, beetlenut, chank-metals, falt, and tobacco, &c. The foregoing inftances of the value of the lands in the province of Bengal only, held by the Rajahs, fhall fuffice, fays Mr Holwell, without particularifing thofe held by the Zemindars, fcattered through the provinces ; fome of whom are very confiderable land holders; these are generally taxed nearer the real value of their lands, than those which are held by the Rajahs. A bare mention of the principal remaining fources, will fully and amply fhew the vast importance of the stake we are pushing for. The revenues of the city of Patna, and thofe of the province of BabarThe government of Purnea, a rich Nabobfbip-The revenues of the capital of Morfbudabad, the city of Rajabmbol, the towns and districts of Coffimbuzar, Cutwab, Mercha, Buxbunder, Azimgunge, Filing bee, Baaker Gunge, Rajapore, feve ral petty Nabobfhips, and Fowfdaarys, &c. The governments and diftricts of Midnapore, and Chitygongh, already ceded to us by the treaty of 1760-And the Purgunnabs, ceded by the treaty E 1757, all held by a moft precarious tenure, whilft this war with the government fubfifts. F North Weft of Besnapore, contiguous lie the territories of Buddier Jamma G Khan, fon and fucceffor to Afloola Khan, a Mogul, and Prince of Bierbohem.He is taxed at ten lac per annum. North Eaft of Calcutta, diftant about 30 miles, lies Kinagur, the fort and capital of Rajab Kiffen Chund. He poffelles a tract of country of about 120 H miles, and is taxed at nine lac per ann. though his revenues exceed 25 lac ; his principal towns are Santipore, deak, Bouren, &c. where muilmulls, To fum up the whole, fays he, we venture to ftake our credit and vera. city on the affertion, that the two provinces of Bengal and Bahar, will fully yield a revenue of eleven khorose, per annum. or 13,750,000 l. ferl.-If it yields this under a defpotic and tyrannic government, in times of peace and currency of trade, what may not expect more from its improvements under a mild and Britife" one? To conclude, we repeat If we fhould fucceed in the attempt, great and glorious will be the Briti name in those parts, and immenfe the gain to the company and nation-if we fail-nothing remains, but to ob. tain a lasting peace on almost any terms -for if this war continues much longer on the prefent ineffectual and expenfive footing, the company, as a company, cannot poffibly fupport it. As Mr Holwell is about to oblige the public with a fecond part of this work, it is requested, in behalf of Some Account of a small Volume, juft Pub- THIS work confifts of five dif B courfes, faid to have been delivered in a Philofophical Society, but where this fociety met, we are not told; poffibly on the other fide of the Tweed, tor there are fome expreffions D in the work which are now feldom used, but by natives of Scotland; particularly prefently poffeffed, for poffeffed at prefent. E In the firft difcourfe, the author confiders, the knowledge of human na. ture as very imperfect, and endea. vours to affign the caufe of that im. perfection. One caufe, he says, is, 1 the little acquaintance of thofe who have ftudied the philofophy of the mind, with the structure of the body, and the laws of the animal economy; for, in his opinion, the intimate connection of the mind and body, and F the mutual influence they have over each other, make it impoffible thoroughly to understand the conftitution of either, if they are examined apart. Another caufe affigned by him, for the imperfection of our knowledge of human nature, is, the confidering man as a being that has no analogy with G the rest of the animal creation. He fays, after most other moral philofophers, that nature is an whole made up of parts, which, tho' diftinct, are fo intimately connected with one another, that the loweft of one fpecies, often runs almost imperceptibly into the highest of another. This, howe. ver, cannot be pretended with respect to men and brutes. There is infinite distance between rational and irrational; the difference between fome H reason and no reason, is the fame as that between some matter and no matter. There is, indeed, in brutes, fomething that cannot be resolved into mere matter and motion; but, it does not follow, that it is fpecifically the fame with that which cannot be refolved into mere matter and motion in man, and differs only in degree. The author, indeed, acknowledges, that if man is not the only animal pofsessed of reason, he has it in a degree fo greatly fuperior, as admits of no comparison; and, he proceeds to compare him with brutes, by obferving, that he is not only capable of all the pleasures which they enjoy, but of many others to which they are ftrangers; particularly, the pleafures of imagination, of fcience, of the fine arts, and of that which arifes from the princi ple of curiofity: but, above all, says he, the moral fenfe, with the happinefs infpired by religion, and the various intercourfes of focial life, is the peculiar characteristic of man. The author proceeds to obferve, that certain advantages which brute animals feem to have over us, though they are the neceffary refult of their state of life, are not exclufively fo, but might be enjoyed by us in common with them. He fays that all animals, except ourfelves, and those that we take under our direction, enjoy every pleasure of which their nature is capable; that they are ftrangers to pain and fickness, and, if not injured by external accidents, arrive at the natural period of their being and it would be ftrange to fuppofe it a neceffary confequence of our fuperior faculties, that not one in ten thousand of our spectes fhould die a natural death; that we should fruggle through a frail and feverish being, in continual danger of ficknels, pain, and dotage. It is therefore worth while to confider how these evils may be remedied. He fays, that instinct, is poffeffed by men in common with brutes, and that in both it constantly impels to what is proper to be done; but that in man, it ftands in need of a guide to allift it in obtaining its end, to restrain it when improperly directed, or in circumftances in which the public good requires a facrifice of private gratification. He obferves, that the advantages which brutes have over men in po. lifhed ftates, are poffeffed by favages in common with brutes, and therefore are are in the power of those who do not fecure them. He obferves farther, that we can improve the breed of horfes, dogs, cattle, and all other brutes; and, he infers, that we might, by the fame care A and attention, improve the breed of then. To fupport this fuppofition, he remarks, that notwithstanding our promiscuous marriages, there is a family character, as well as a family face. One of the advantages which the brutes have over us, but which we might fecure, if we would, is the B healthiness of their young. One third of mankind dies under two years old ; of one hundred children born in the fame week, only forty are alive at the end of twenty years; and, at the end of eighty four years, which ought to be the horteft natural period of human life, they are all dead. The extraordinary havock made by difeafes among children, arifes from the unnatural manner in which they are treated, and the delicacy of their frame, which finks under the injury. Their own inftincts, and the conduct of nature in rearing other animals, D are never attended to. Every other animal brings forth its young without affiftance; but we take the bufinefs out of the hand of nature, and put it into that of the midwife; but the numbers, not only of children, but of mothers, that are deftroyed by the preposterous management of thefe E artifts, is well known to all who have enquired into the matter. The skilful are conscious, and the candid will confefs, that nature is fufficient, in common and natural cases; and that fhe wants affiftance only, when the mother is weak, or the posture of the F child unnatural. There is a glairous liquor in the bowels of children, and other animals, when they are born, which it is neceffary to carry off; the medicine which nature has provided for this purpofe is, the mother's first milk. The Lords of the Creation, however, have thought fit to ordain, that the child fhall not fuck till the third day after the birth; the confequence of which is, that the mother has a milk-fever, which frequently prevents her being able to fuckle the child at all, produces fwellings and impofthumes, lays the foundation of cancers, and fometimes cofts her her life. At the fame time, the child, inftead of receiving a falutary potion from the hand of nature, is initantly ammed with phyfic, the compofition which, varies according to the G H Nature alfo requires, that women fhould fuckle their children, and their own health, and that of the child, greatly depends upon it. There are many diforders for which nurfing is a cure, and it generally ftrengthens a delicate conftitution; fewer women die while they fuckle, than in any o ther equal period of their lives, except pregnancy; and fuckling is neceffary to prevent their having children faster than their conflitution can bear. A woman who does not fuckle, may expect a child every year, this quickly exhaufts the conftitution, and brings on the infirmities of old age before their time: But a woman who fuckles, has an interval of a year and a half, or two years, which gives time for the conftitution to recover its vigour. The child alfo fuffers great injury by fucking the milk of women dif ferent in age and conftitution from their mother's, fuppofing the nurse to do all for them that the mother would be prompted to do by natural affection, and that the nurfe is free from all the miferable difeafes fo common among the lower class of people in large cities. The child, however, is expofed to many other evils, by our departure from instinct, and neglecting the analogy of nature. All young animals delight in the open air, and in perpe tual motion, yet we keep our infants moftly in houfes, and fwath them as tightly as poffible. The manifeft tokens of delight which a child fhews in the fhort interval between pulling off its day cloaths, and fwathing it again for the night, and the ftrong reluctance it difcovers to be remitted to its bon dage, one fhould think, would carry univerfal conviction of the cruelty and abfurdity of the practice. Boys, indeed, are soon released from this confinement, but the fairer part of our fpecies fuffer it during life: We ftupidly fuppofe, that the fhape of a woman's chett, is not fo elegant by nature, as we can make it by art; and therefore lace on a prepofterous machine, to which we give the name of Rays. This This commonly produces obftructions in the lungs, and, befides tainting the breath, deftroys multitudes by confumptions in the bloom of life. It alfo feldom fails to produce deformity, for scarce one women in ten that has from her infancy been confined in stiff ftays, is perfectly ftrait. No favage is deformed; and their fuperior ftrength and agility, is intirely the effect of their living abroad in the open air, and of their limbs having never suffered confinement. A It is alfo true, that the favages never catch cold; they are therefore free from the innumerable difeafes of which catching cold is the cause ; and, if we catch cold, it is manifeftly our own fault, and the effect of loading children with many cloaths, suffering them to fit over a fire, and ac, customing them to fleep in warm C rooms. An education, as hardy as that of a favage, would preferve us all from catching cold; though the greater care we take to prevent catching cold, by the various contrivances of modern luxury, the more imminent we make our danger. Nature never made any country too cold for its inhabitants; but modern luxury has deprived us of our natural defence against the difeafes of our own climate, and has besides fubjected us to all the inconveniencies of a warm one. Thefe obfervations, fays the author, abundantly fhew, that many of the calamities, fuppofed to be connected with our nature, are merely the result of our folly. provement of agriculture, ftill in its infancy, and of other useful arts. He obferves, that medicine owes more to Paracelfus, an illiterate enthufiaft, than to all the phyficians who have written fince Hippocrates, except Sydenham, who owes his fame to the application of great natural fagacity in making obfervations, and an uncommon candour in relating them. It will be confeffed, he fays, by every physician of fenfe and candour, who has been regularly bred, that his time has been wafted among useless theories and voluminous commentaries and explanations; that every thing useful that he ever gained from books, might be taught to any man of common fenfe and attention, in a few months; and that two years experience is worth all his library. He obferves also, that the most usual abule and proftitution of fine parts is, the spending much time in reading: In reading, he fays, the mind is in a great measure paffive, and becomes furfeited with knowledge which it never digefts: The memory, fays he, is burdened with a load of nonfenfe and Dimpertinence; and genius and invention languifh for want of exercise. In the fecond difcourfe, the author proceeds to make fome obfervations on the ufes that mankind make of p thofe faculties that distinguish them from brutes. It must, however, be observed, that this author, tho' he thus difcourages reading, trongly exhorts the student to write, as a means of turning his parts to the advantage of mankind; but furely it can be good to write 8 only in proportion as it is good to read. Reading is a waste of time only when it is ill performed. If, when a man reads, he lays his mind paffively open to the fentiments which the au thor pours in upon it; if he impli citly admits them, and indiscriminately treafures them up, the ill confequences which this author imputes to much reading will follow. But, intead of difcouraging the student from reading, he should direct him to read well: He that would avail himself of his own powers, cannot more effectu ally do it than by reading, if he confiders the book as only prefcribing the fubject on which he is to think, and brings to the test of his own judgment the fentiments of his author as they occur. Belides, a man muft read much, before he is acquainted with all that has already been fuccefsfully effected, and indubitably af certained; before he has acquired all the knowledge that is established by demonftration already: And if he is too hasty to employ his own powers, The author obferves, very juftly, that fuperior genius is frequently mif employed, and therefore does not contribute to the happiness either of the poffeffor, or any one else; and that it & has generally wafted its strength in attempting to grafp what providence has placed beyond its reach. He laments that our libraries are filled with profound fytems of philofophy and theology, which, relating to objects wholly incomprehenfible, can only thew the pride and impotence of the human understanding; and that the powers, which were thus wafted, were not ufefully employed on fubjects to which they were equal; to the im he he will probably difcover, after a year's hard ftudy, fomething which an hour's reading would have fhewn him to be difcovered already: How many years might the greateft genius in the world employ, without finding out the first four rules in arithmetic? B The author proceeds to tell us, that those who devote moft of their time to the cultivation of their underftanding, are generally lefs happy than others. He has not, however, fufficiently explained what he means by the cultivation of the understanding It is true, that thofe who lock themfelves up in a college, or a bookroom, and read in the manner he has defcribed, are not likely either to be happy or good; but furely he that thus employs his time does not cultivate his understanding. He only that thinks cultivates his understanding; and if he that thinks has a proper fenfe of his duty, he will not think for him. felf, he will direct his ftudies to the benefit of others; and, in the confcioufnefs of fuperior powers and attainments, directed to the best purpofes, he will have a fource of the D nobleft pleasure that human nature, or perhaps any nature, can enjoy. The cultivation of the understanding will not make a bad man happy, but it will make a good man happier than any thing else: Neither can we fup. pofe that it naturally tends to prevent a man from being good; for it would be ftrange, indeed, to fuppofe that Providence has fo ordered the conftitution of this world, that the cultivation of our noblest powers thould be incompatible with our higheft interest. He fays, that people who devote most of their time to the cultivation of their understandings, muft live retired and abftracted from the world; and that confequently the focial af. fections, thofe great fources of happinefs, having no play, will naturally lofe their vigour; but that can fcarce be called a cultivation of the underftanding, which leaves a man either ignorant or negligent both of his duty and his happiness: He may heap up knowledge, indeed, as a mifer does gold, without any regard to its ufe; But this is not improving his underftanding; it exerts no faculties but perception and memory, and has no tendency to produce wifdom, however it may accumulate knowledge. Abtraction from the world, certainly tends to fubvert both happiness and virtue; a wife man will therefore E F H certainly avoid it; and, to cultivate the understanding, is to become wife. It is certainly true, that the faults and frailties which the man of great parts fhares in common with the reft of mankind, faults and frailties which are by no means peculiar to great abilities, do frequently prevent him from rendering his fuperiority the fource of happiness to himself, or to others; but it does not therefore follow, that great abilities do not put fuperior happiness into our power. To preferve great abilities, it is certainly neceffary to unbend them; and, to render the poffeffor amiable, he muft practise the fame arts, and poffefs the fame quali ties, that render thofe amiable who have not great parts. No man whofe temper is fweet, whofe manner affable, and whofe converfation is chearful; who is communicative without oftentation, neither locking up his know. ledge in a contemptuous filence, nor displaying it with an impertinent and overbearing loquacity, was ever lefs beloved for having fuperior parts, or under any neceffity to hide them, for fear of giving offence. There is therefore no reafon to fuppofe, with this author, that Providence purposely blafts thofe great fruits, which we na. turally expect from intellectual fupe. riority to preferve a certain ballance and equality among mankind; neither indeed is it eafy to conceive what good can refult from preferving fuch a ballance equivalent to the facrifice that is made to preserve it. This author proceeds to confider mankind as diftinguished from brutes by a principle which unites them into focieties, and attaches them to each other by fympathy and affection; and this, he fays, is the fource of the most heartfelt pleasure we ever taste. It has not, he fays, any natural connection with the understanding; and he fuppofes the idle, the diffolute, and the debauched, to derive most pleasure from this fource. The truth of this fuppofition, however, may well be difputed; for it is not lefs paradoxical than dangerous. If the idle, the diffolute, and the debauched, derive most pleasure from this principle, and if this principle is a fource of the most heartfelt pleasure we ever tafte, it is certainly the intereft of mankind to be idle, diffolute, and debauched, with refpect to this life; and it will be found very difficult to conceive, why the Divine Being should make our intere& in another, "depend upen |