Some of the missionaries, such as, Father de Magistris, Frederick Schwarz a Dane[38], and Father Johannes de Brito, whose manuscript works, never yet published, I have now in my hands, complain bitterly of the oppression which the subjects of the Pagan kings had to endure. M. Anquetil du Perron endeavours to defend the latter, and to prove that private persons enjoyed real and individual property, among which he reckons gardens and meadows. I can, however, establish, by historical documents, that this assertion is altogether false, and that Anquetil was totally unacquainted with the ancient Indian laws. The kings either let their rice fields to the farmers called _Vayshya_, or gave up the use of them to their soldiers for military service. It is very certain that a great many abuses were connected with the regal authority; and, in my opinion, this was the principal cause why the kings of _Madura_, _Maïssur_, _Tanjaur_ and _Marava_ came at last to destruction. Their subjects were, indeed, divided into nobles, patricians and plebeians; but these three ranks were always at variance, and the people groaned under the severest oppression. It was very customary for one, under the pretence of avenging some injury he had sustained, to fall upon the property of another and to carry it off. The monarchs were at great pains to keep up these feuds, and they seldom suffered the offended party to receive justice. Continual jealousy prevailed between these petty tyrants; military discipline was totally neglected, and nothing was encouraged at court but luxury and flattery. Under these circumstances, it needs excite no wonder that the people received foreigners bent upon conquest with open arms; and that these kings, after a dominion of two thousand years, brought themselves at last to ruin, as must be the case with all those who suffer such abuses in their government. The revolution which happened in these kingdoms, when the English interfered in the affairs of India, might perhaps have been of some use, had not that nation, as avaricious as it is industrious, carried away all the productions and other riches of the country. It is thus that the nations of the earth are punished, when they abandon themselves so completely to vice that they shut their eyes against the light of reason, and in their blindness stray from the paths of justice and virtue.