a small district of the kingdom of Bengal, in the East Indies, which has all along preserved its independence*. It has been governed time immemorial by a Brahmin family of the tribe of Rajahputs. Here the purity and equity of the ancient political system of the Indians is found unadulterated. This singular government, the finest and most striking monument in the world, has till now been beheld with too much indifference. We have no remains of ancient nations but brass and marble, which speak only to imagination and conjecture, those uncertain interpreters of manners and customs that no longer exist. Were a philosopher transported to Bissenpour, he would immediately be a witness of the life led by the first inhabi- tants of India many thousand years ago; he would converse with them; he would trace the progress of this nation, celebrated as it were from its very infancy; he would see the rise of a government which, being founded in happy prejudices, in a simplicity and purity of manners, in the mild temper of the people; and the integrity of the chieftains, has survived those innumerable systems of legislation, which have made only a transitory appearance in the stage of the world with the generations they were designed to torment. More solid and durable than those political structures, which, raised by impetuosity and enthusiasm, are the scourges of human kind, and are doomed to perish with the foolish opinions that gave them birth, the government of Biffenpour, the offspring of a just attention to order and the laws of nature, has been established and maintained upon unchangeable principles, and has undergone no more alteration than those principles themselves. The singular situation of this country has preserved to the inhabitants their primitive happiness and the gentleness of their character, by securing them from the danger of being conquered, or of imbruing their hands in the blood of their fellow-creatures. Nature has surrounded them with water; and they need only open the sluices of their rivers to overflow the whole country. The armies sent to subdue them have frequently been drowned, that the plan of enslaving them has been laid aside; and the projectors of it have thought proper to content themselves with an appearance of submission.

Liberty and property are sacred in Biffenpour. Robbery, either public or private, is never heard of. As soon as any stranger enters the territory, he comes under the protection of the laws, which provide for his security. He is furnished with guides at free cost, who conduct him from place to place, and are answerable for his person and effects. When he changes his conductors, the new ones deliver to those they relieve an attestation of their conduct, which is registered and afterwards sent to the Raja. All the time he remains in the country, he is maintained and conveyed with his merchandise at the expense of the state, unless he desires leave to stay longer than three days in the same place. In that case, he is obliged to defray his own expenses; unless he is detained by any disorder, or other unavoidable accident. This beneficence to strangers is the consequence of the warmth with which the citizens enter into each other's interests. They are so far from being guilty of an injury to each other, that whoever finds a purse, or other thing of value, hangs it upon the first tree he meets with, and informs the nearest guard, who give notice of it to the public by beat of drum. These maxims of probity are so generally received, that they direct even the operations of government. Out of about 350,000l. on an average it annually receives, without injury to agriculture or trade, what is not wanted to supply the unavoidable expenses of the state, is laid out in improvements. The Raja is enabled to engage in these humane employments, as he pays the Moguls only what tribute is due, and at what times he thinks proper.