PREFACE
TO
A STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF BENGAL,
VOLUME I.
'We are of opinion,' wrote the Court of Directors in 1807 to their servants in Bengal, 'that a Statistical Survey of the country would be attended with much utility: we therefore recommend proper steps to be taken for the execution of the same.' The despatch from which these words are quoted forms an example of a long series of instructions, in which the East India Company urged the acquisition of accurate and systematic knowledge concerning the territories which it had won. The first formulated effort in Bengal dates from 1769, four years after the civil administration of the Province came into its hands; the latest orders of the Court of Directors on the subject were issued in 1855, three years before the government of India passed from the Company to the Crown. During the long interval, many able and earnest men had laboured at the work, manuscript materials of great value had been amassed, and several important volumes had been published. But such efforts were isolated, directed by no central organization, and unsustained by any continuous plan of execution.
The ten years which followed the transfer of the government of India to the Crown produced a new set of efforts towards the statistical elucidation of the country. Con-
