there are many customary laws, it would be proper to employ one pundit of Bengal and another from Behar; and fince there are two Mohammedan fects, who differ in regard to many traditions from their Prophet, and to fome decisions of their respective doctors, it might be thought equally proper to engage one maulavi of each fect; and this mode would have another advantage, fince two lawyers conferring freely together on fundamental principles common to both, would affift, direct, and check each other *.

Although I can have no perfonal interest, immediate or confequential, in the work pro pofed, yet I would cheerfully have borne the whole expense of it, if common prudence had not restrained me, and if my private establishment of native readers and writers, which I cannot with convenience difcontinue at prefent, did not require more than half of the monthly expense, which the completion of a digest would, in my opinion, demand. I am

* A passage relating to the remuneration of the na tives to be employed, is here omitted.

under a neceffity therefore of intimating, that if the work be thought expedient, the charges of it should be defrayed by the government, and the falaries paid by their officers. The fecond difficulty is, to find a director of the work and a tranflator of it, who with a competent knowledge of the Sanfcrit and Arabic, has a general acquaintance with the principles of jurisprudence, and a fufficient share even of legiflative fpirit, to arrange the plan of a digeft, fuperintend the compilation of it, and render the whole, as it proceeds, into perfpicuous English; fo that even the tranflation may acquire a degree of authority proportioned to the public opinion of his accuracy. Now, though I am truly confcious of poffeffing a very moderate portion of those talents, which I fhould require in the superintendant of fuch a work, yet I may without vanity profefs myfelf equal to the labour of it; and though I would much rather fee the work well conducted by any man than myself, yet I would rather give myself the trouble of it, than not live to fee it conducted at all; and I cannot

but know, that the qualifications required even

1

in the low degree in which I poffefs them,

are not often found united in the fame perfon, for a reafon before fuggefted. If If your Lordship, therefore, after full confideration of the fubject, fhall be of opinion, that a digeft of Hindu and Mohammedan laws would be a work of national honour and utility;-I fo cherish both, that I offer the nation my humble labour as far as I can difpofe of my time confiftently with the faithful discharge of my duty as a magiftrate: fhould this offer be accepted, I should then request your Lordship to nominate the pundits and maulavis, to whom I would severally give a plan conformable to the best analysis that I could make; and I should be able, if my health continued firm, to translate every morning, before any other business is begun, as much as they could compile, and the writers copy in the preceding day. The Dhermafaftra, or facred code of the Hindus, confifts of eighteen books, the first of which would in any age or nation be thought a wonderful performance; both the

firft and fecond have excellent commentaries of great authority, but the other fixteen are too easy to need elucidation: the works of Menu, of Yagyawalcia, and most of the others are in blank verfe, but that of Gautam is in modulated profe; befides thefe, the Hindus have many standard law-tracts with their feveral commentaries, and among them a fine treatise on inheritances by Jemutavahan, to which our pundits often refer; though on that subject, the work of Raghunanden seems to be more generally approved in this province. The Muffulmans, befides a few general rules in the Koran, and a number of traditional maxims delivered from their Prophet, and his companions through the fages of their law, together with the opinions of the celebrated lawyers preferved by their dif ciples, have two incomparable little tracts, one by Surajuddin, and the other by Alkuduri; the former on fucceffion only, and the other on contracts; alfo with comments on each, and other comments on them; not to mention fome other tracts of acknowledged

authority, and large collections of decifion in particular cafes. All these books may, I fuppose, be procured with ease; and fome of the most rare among them are in my poffeffion; mine I would lend with pleasure to the pundits and maulavis, if they happened to be unprovided with good copies of them, and my example would, I perfuade myself, be followed on fuch an occafion by other collectors of Eastern manufcripts, both natives and Europeans. This is all that appears neceffary to be written on the fubject, with, which I began this addrefs to your Lordship; I could not have expreffed myself more concifely without fome obfcurity; and to have enlarged on the technical plan of the work which I have proposed, would have been fuperfluous.

I have the honour to be, &c.

Calcutta, March 19, 1788.

WILLIAM JONES.

A propofal fuch as the letter of Sir William Jones contains, could not fail of receiving that