8vo. xvi, 163pp. [1]. Modern red cloth, contrasting black calf lettering-piece to spine. Very occasional light spotting.

The first edition of evangelical activist John Poynder's (1779/80-1849) impassioned attack on the East India Company's toleration of idolatry in India. Poynder devoted much of his life to this issue, he published numerous articles condemning the company's policy of religious toleration, its collection of pilgrim taxes from Hindu shrines, and its refusal to prohibit the rite of suttee (widow immolation). He was highly influential in the company's 1833 dispatch ordering the abandonment of the taxation of pilgrims.