A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s2.26

v1.c5.s2.26

‘ I was, as might have been expected, driven home; but it was some time before I had health or inclination to get through the task I had undertaken. At last I sent the MS. to the late Mr. Murray. It was read and approved of by the person to whom he submitted it. I waited upon the potentate of Albemarle Street, who told me he would publish the work if I would alter the title. I said “it was a history of the Mahrattas, and only of the Mahrattas.” “Who knows anything about the Mahrattas?” “That’s the reason,” said I, “the book has been written; no one does know much about them.” “Well,” replied Murray, “and who cares to know? If you call it the Downfall of the Moguls, and the Rise of the English, or something of that kind it may do, but *A History of the Mahrattas*—that will never sell!” I was not in the least discouraged, although I too well knew that what Mr. Murray said was true, and amongst other drawbacks, although India is now beginning to excite a little more interest in England, no one can write or speak of India as of Europe—the feeling which cheers and impels the writer or the orator by an indescribable . . . .¹ sympathy is wanting, and hence the tiresome task which the narration of events purely Indian imposes. Of course I do not mean such narratives as Orme’s *Carnatic*, which is more exciting than it could have been made by the fancy of De Foe. I got the MS. laid before Sir James Mackintosh, who most kindly, without stopping to finish it, walked from Cadogan Place to Paternoster Row (before the days of omnibuses), and at his recommendation Longman & Co. immediately wrote to me offering to publish it. It went through the press in six weeks, and many errors corrected by me escaped the vigilance of the compositor; the reason was the MS. was too distinctly copied; had it been in such an abominably indistinct hand as mine, one of their best men would have been selected, but because distinct I got one of the less experienced.