Those who read these letters with attention cannot fail to perceive that my most earnest desire and most cherished ambition is to induce Englishmen at home to take a lively and effective interest in the native population of their Eastern dominions; and with that view to lay before them a plain statement of the feeling which is entertained towards the population by the European settlers in India. This is a task which cannot be undertaken by an anonymous writer. On a matter so momentous evidence will not be received from a witness whose character and antecedents are unknown. On all the great questions which now agitate Anglo-Indian society the civilians and the settlers are at odds: so that men naturally reject the testimony of an author whom the larger half of his readers and reviewers believe to be a civilian.