We have received from Messrs. R. Cambray and Co., of
Calcutta, the first of three volumes of a welcome reprint of the famous Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company, dated July 28th, 1812, The Committee was appointed in 1808 and eat for four years. Its Fifth Report, drafted by James Cumming, of the Board of Control, dealt with the revenue and judicial administration of Bengal and Madras, and has remained the standard authority on the subject. It has boon twice reprinted, at Madras, in 1860 and 1883, and we recently noticed a useful reprint, edited by Mr. Ascoli, of the Bowel sections of the Report. The complete work, however, is so scarce that this now edition is assured of success. Archdeacon Firminger, of Calcutta, has prefixed to it a long and interesting Introduction, on the history of the Company's administration in Bengal down to the time of Warren Hastings. Ho is impartial enough to point out that there was a good aide to the factiousness of Philip Francis, who, whatever his motives may have been, stood up for the rights of the natives against the Company with its over-increasing demand for trading profits.
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