NOTES TO THE APPENDIX.

H 9

cc riches of a state, must have happened either from“ extraordinary drains , .or from some defect in the“ government. Indostan has been frequently plundered“ by foreign invaders, and not one of its kings ever

“ gained for it any acquisition of wealth , neither has

tc the country many mines of gold and silver, and yet“ Indostan abounds in money and every other kind of" weakh. The abundance of specie is undoubtedly owingec to the large importation of gold and silver in the shins“ of Europe, and other nations, many of whom bringa ready money in exchange for the manufactures and“ natural productions of the country. if this is notu the cause of the prosperous state of Indostan , it

“ must be owing to the peculiar blest! ig of God. ”

Memoirs of Khojeh Abdul - kurreein, a Cafhmeerian ofdistinction, p, 42.

NOTE IV. p. 266.

That. the monarchs of India were the sole proprietorsof land, is asserted in most explicit terms by the ancients.The people (fay they) pay a land-tax to their kings,because the kingdom is regal property. Strabo, lib, xv.p. io)o. A. Dsod. Sicul. lib. ii. p. 1;This was notpeculiar to India In all the great monarchies of theEast, the sole property of land seems to be vested inthe sovereign as lord. paramount. According to Chardin,this is the state of property in Persia, and lands werelet by the monarch to the farmers, who cultivated them,on conditions nearly resembling those granted to the IndianRyots. Voyages, torn. iii. p. 519 . &c. 410. M. Volneygives a similar account of the tenure by which landsare held in one of the great provinces of the TVksthempire. Vov. en Syrie, &c. torn. ii. p. ; 69, &c Theprecise mode, however, in which the Ryots of Indostanheld their possessions, is a circumstance in its ancient

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