PREFACE. xvii extensively beneficial, in proportion as it is conferred on thole only whom a competent knowledge of the Bengalese has previously qualified for a personal investigation of every unwarrantable exaction, and scrutiny into every complicated account. Aid to this, that there is not one office under the Nazim or Mogul administration, nor one provincial or subordinate court of justice in the kingdom where an interpreter for this language is not judged as neceilary and as conftantly employed as for the Perfian : and if any public notices are to be difperfed through the country, or affixed in the great towns, they are always at- tended with a Bengal tranflation. In fhort, if vigour, impartia- lity and difpatch be required to the operations of government, to the diftribution of juftice, to the colleffions of the revenue* and to the tranfaclions of commerce, they are only to be fecu- red by a proper attention to that dial d ufed h v the body of the people; efpecially as it is much better calculated both for pub- lic and private affairs bv its plainnefs, its precifion and regula- rity of conftru&ion, than the flowery fentences and modulated periods of the Perfian. Another lingular advantage which it poflefTes, is its aptitude for the bufinefs of the compting-houfe. For the Bengal doft- rine of numbers, both in the forms of the figures and in i heir •application, nearly approaches to the fyftem adopted in Europe j from
