PREFACE.
The present volume of sketches and illustrations of Madras in the Olden Time, is a republication of a series of papers which have already appeared from week to week in the columns of the “Indian Statesman.” The compiler has long been anxious to obtain some information respecting the early history of the English settlements on the Coast of Coromandel. Hitherto the century commencing with the first establishment of Fort St. George, and closing with the war between the French and English in which the intriguing of Dupleix was defeated by the genius of Clive, has been emphatically a blank in the history of India. The Government Office was known to be crowded with documents illustrative of the period ; but no one appears to have had sufficient leisure to commence the task of historical research. Some two years ago however Mr. Hudleston, the present Sub-Treasurer of the Board of Revenue, made a few extracts from the earliest volumes of the Mad-
