In pursuance of the Orders from the Court of Directors of East India Company, issued in the year 1807. The Governor General in Council Commissioned Dr. Francis Buchanan to| conduct a survey of the life and conditions of the people of British India Dr. Buchanan was provided with specific directions for the guidance. These directions included to make available the materials relating to a topographical account of each district, the conditions of the inhabitants religion the natural productions of the country, agriculture, fine arts and commerce etc. The materials collected, alongwith observations, were forwarded in 1816 and which remained in the form of manuscripts in East India House. Montgomery Martin undertook the project to present the survey to the people in the form of the book. "Two facts are peculiarly striking", comments Martin. Firstly the richness of the country surveyed and secondly, the poverty of its inhabitants. There is a peculiar thing about Montgomery Martin also, that he is critical about British Empire. He aims at to arouse the people of England to some sense of feeling for the miserable conditions of their fellow subject inhabiting British India. So. we find ‘Friend of India’ in the person of Montgomery Martin. Martin’s sentiments also no real a very important though often neglected fact of history of British Colonialism, that the people of England were Different than the British Masters. In fact, the people and the Rulers, all over the world, belong to two distinct categories and people should always look forward to the people of other countries for their welfare defying the Rulers. Thus the present Volume of the Historical Documents of Eastern India defines the surveys conducted in Bihar and Patna, Shahabad, Bhagalpur, Gorakhpur, Dinajpur, Puraniya, Ronggopur and Assam.
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