In the year 1784, he again embarked for England, but died on his passage home; his books and papers were however carefully transmitted to his executors, and by them made over to his son, now Colonel Davy of Tracey Park, near Bath, in whose library, the MS. of which I have undertaken the translation, remained unexamined till last year, when in consequence of my report of it to the Royal Asiatic Society, it was recommended to the Oriental Translation Committee. The following extract of a letter respecting the authenticity of the Institutes, was written by Major Davy, previous to his return to India, and was published with the Preface to that work. * * * * * _Extract of a Letter from the late Major Davy, to the late Doctor White, Laudian Professor of Arabic in the University of Oxford, dated October 24, 1779._ “The History of Timour, written by himself, carries with it the strongest proofs that he wrote for posterity only; and that he could not, in prudence, or in policy, make his work public during his life: for it contains not only the same accurate detail of the facts and occurrences of his reign, as are found in other authors, but it goes much further. He gives you that which he only had the power to give, the secret springs and motives which influenced his conduct in the various political and military transactions of his life, the arts by which he governed, as well as the power by which he conquered. He acknowledges his weaknesses, honestly owns his errors, describes the difficulties in which he was occasionally involved by those errors, and the policy by which he surmounted and overcame those difficulties. In a word, it is a compleat Index to his head and his heart; and though, take it all in all, it redounds to the honour of both the one and the other, yet it was a work by no means calculated for the perusal of his enemies, or even his subjects during his life; since it would have enabled those who chose it, to combat him with his own weapons, or, in other words, to have turned his arts and his policy against himself. Hence it is reasonable to suppose, that the work in question was entirely unknown during his life; and its subsequent temporary obscurity may, I think, be plausibly accounted for, by the probability of one copy only existing at the time of his death, by the uncertainty into whose hands that copy fell, and by the divisions which followed in his family after the death of Shaahroch.