Goldsmith's History of England, and Mill's History of India.

Literature cannot be said to exist for the people till the newspaper
appears. Bengal was the first non-Christian country into which the
press had ever been introduced. Above all forms of truth and faith
Christianity seeks free discussion; in place of that the
missionaries lived under a shackled press law tempered by the higher
instincts of rulers like Wellesley, Hastings, and Bentinck, till
Macaulay and Metcalfe gained for it liberty. When Dr. Marshman in
1818 proposed the publication of a Bengali periodical, Dr. Carey,
impressed by a quarter of a century's intolerance, consented only on
the condition that it should be a monthly magazine, and should avoid
political discussion. Accordingly the Dig-darshan appeared,
anticipating in its contents and style the later Penny and Saturday
Magazines, and continued for three years. Its immediate success led
to the issue from the Serampore press on the 31st May 1818, of "the
first newspaper ever printed in any Oriental language"--the Samachar
Darpan, or News Mirror.

It was a critical hour when the first proof of the first number was
laid before the assembled brotherhood at the weekly meeting on
Friday evening. Dr. Carey, fearing for his spiritual work, but
eager for this new avenue to the minds of the people who were being
taught to read, and had little save their own mythology, consented
to its publication when Dr. Marshman promised to send a copy, with
an analysis of its contents in English, to the Government, and to
stop the enterprise if it should be officially disapproved. Lord
Hastings was fighting the Pindarees, and nothing was said by his
Council. On his return he declared that "the effect of such a paper
must be extensively and importantly useful." He allowed it to