A History of the Mahrattas v1.c5.s2.30

v1.c5.s2.30

‘The publishers took the risk. The book cost me upwards of £2,000 before it went to press. The Court of Directors took forty copies—which they would have done equally, had it been a Mahratta Vocabulary—and as a general rule, is liberal; but, although I collected all those materials, certainly valuable to Government, and gave them an original and most valuable map, they never even acknowledged the receipt of the latter. They never inquired, and I certainly never stated, that I lost upwards of £1,700 by what I had done, and indeed excepting a very few, I do not suppose any director or aspirant of that period even opened the Mahratta History after they became directors—a matter of no consequence, excepting as discouraging to such servants of the Company as may engage in extraordinary labour, and whom most certainly it is their province at least . . . .¹ in order to stimulate others in a like course.