CURRENT LITERATURE.
History of the Indian Navy, 1613-1643. By Charles Rathbone Low. 2 vols. (Bontley.)—Lientenant Low deserves well of his country for collecting in these two volumes the records of services rendered to it in past years, under circumstances which often forbad the reward either of wealth or of glory. And we hope that the labour thus performed will not fail to be properly appreciated. The list of subscribers given in the first volume is but meagre, and accounts for but five hundred copies. It is not creditable, but not surprising, that in this list there does not appear the name of a single peer, excepting, indeed, six who aro officially connected with India. We only live that the public will make the book what it deserves to be,—a success. It should take its place with such books as James's "Naval History," in every library whose owner seeks to have anything like a complete account of the exploits of his countrymen. These exploits were indeed done, for the most part, in remote regions, against obscure enemies, who were only not con- temptible because they often possessed an incalculable power of mischief ; And by men who, for all their heroism, very seldom, it may almost be said never, rose to fame, but it is well that they should not be forgotten. Lieutenant Low has provided, by this careful and laborious work, that they should not. The narratives which he relates have been, for the most part, inaccessible. There are not to be found in any histories, but have 'been bnried in reports and the like hiding-places. Often indeed they have only existed in MS., and thus owe their continued existence to the
timely intervention of the author. The earliest of those records intro- duce us to the commercial days of the Company ; a palmy timo it was, as when, for instance, Captain Middleton, of the Calicut,' bought a cargo of cloves of a Java junk for £2,948 15s., and sold it in England for £36,287. This was in 1607. Most of thorn speak of services of the highest utility, and even necessity, but neither profitable nor glorious, rendered in keeping the peace of the Indian seas. Pirates, some of them Europeans, swarmed in those regions, and the " Bombay Marino," with its scanty force, was kept hard at work to hold them in chock. Among the most celebrated of this evil brood were the Angrias, in the earlier half of the eighteenth century, and the Joanin pirates in the Persian Galf,about a hundred years later. More distinguished, but not more useful services were rendered by the Indian Navy in the conquest of Java, in the Burmese wars, in the Persian war, and finally, in the Mutiny, in which as many as fourteen different detachments were employed. A detailed record of all these services the reader will find in these two volumes, which are indeed full of the deeds of brave men. We must be content with thus referring him to them, giving only one instance, that of Commodore Hayes, in 1811, who sooner than embarrass the rela- tions between China and the Company, released lawful prizes of the value of £600,000, an instance which we choose because it is harder for a man to be disinterested than to bo brave.
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