hich either prohibit connection, or oblige us to a connection very
different from what we have hitherto used towards them, I shall leave it
to your Lordships' judgment whether you will suffer such fair monuments
of wisdom and benevolence to be defaced by the rapacity of your
governors. I hope I have not gone out of my way to bring before you any
circumstance relative to the Gentoo religion and manners, further than
as they relate to the spirit of our government over them; for though
there never was such food for the curiosity of the human mind as is
found in the manners of this people, I pass it totally over.

* * * * *

I wish to divide this preliminary view into six periods; and your
Lordships will consider that of the Hindoos, which I have now mentioned,
as the first era.

The second era is an era of great misfortune to that country, and to the
world in general: I mean, the time of the prophet Mahomed. The
enthusiasm which animated his first followers, the despotic power which
religion obtained through that enthusiasm, and the advantages derived
from both over the enervated great empires, and broken, disunited,
lesser governments of the world, extended the influence of that proud
and domineering sect from the banks of the Ganges to the banks of the
Loire.

This second period is the era of the Arabs. These people made a great
and lasting impression on India. They established, very early, Mahomedan
sovereigns in all parts of it, particularly in the kingdom of Bengal,
which is the principal object of our present inquiry. They held that
kingdom for a long series of years, under a dynasty of thirty-three
kings,--having begun their conquest and founded their dominion in Bengal
not very long after the time of their prophet.

These people, when they first settled in India, attempted, with the
ferocious arm of their prophetic sword, to change the religion and
manners of that country; but at length perceiving that their cruelty
wearied out itself, and never could touch the constancy of the
sufferers, they permitted the native people of the country to remain in
quiet, and left the Mahomedan religion to operate upon them as it could,
by appealing to the ambition or avarice of the great, or by taking the
lower people, who had lost their castes, into this new sect, and thus,
from the refuse of the Gentoo, increasing the bounds of the Mahomedan
religion. They left many of the ancient rajahs of th