PREFACE.
Shortly after my arrival in India, I had some thoughts of writing a history of the Eurasian community. I found, however, on closer study of the subject, that, as a community, Eurasians can scarcely be said to have a history. They have founded no empire, built no cities, originated no industry, developed no policy, nor have they created either a philosophy, or a religion, or a school of thought in literature, science, or art. Whole sections of their lower ranks have in the past disappeared entirely among native races, and their higher ranks are being absorbed among pure Europeans. Nevertheless there is a sense in which they have a history, and that history is a record of exclusion and repression, from the year 1786, when the general letter of the Court of Directors (17th March) prohibited the wards of the Upper Orphan School, whose mothers were natives and whose fathers were Britons,
