tolerated by the government, which punishes only those who attempt to interrupt their neighbours in their public worship or private devotions. Besides the Creoles, Mestise, and real Indian females, there are at Cochin a great many European women. These, as soon as they set a foot in India, are converted into ladies of the first rank, though at Paris, London or Amsterdam they had been only fruit-sellers or washer-women. The English, in consequence of an express law, dare not marry Indian women, in order that the race in their colonies may remain pure and unmixed. They indemnify themselves, however, by keeping several mistresses, without caring whether they are Mahometans or Christians. The Dutch are acquainted with no such law, and therefore can choose wives just as they please; but the state of celibacy is so much the mode in this country, that marriages are seldom heard of. Could any one believe that people who act according to such principles, should take the liberty to reprobate the celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy[73]? Instances of this kind have occurred to myself; for I remember an unmarried tobacconist at Cochin, who kept a whole dozen of females, and yet asserted that it was improper in the Roman Catholic clergy not to marry. In Cochin there are every where houses inhabited by great numbers of male and female slaves, who are guilty of the most scandalous transactions. This kind of dissipation was tolerated as soon as the city fell into the hands of the Portuguese; and a very intelligent author thinks he can here discover the real cause why the Portuguese were driven from the city of Cochin, as well as their other possessions in India[74]. Avarice, insolence, dishonesty, infidelity and injustice will always bring kingdoms and states to destruction; and if there be any truth in this observation, some other colonies, perhaps, will not remain long in the hands of the Europeans. Monopolies, discord, and peculation have already greatly increased; and the Indians cannot be too much astonished at the villanies which they daily see committed by the Europeans.