the friendship was broken off about 1769. From 1757 to 1758 Orme was commissary and accountant-general. At the end of 1758, his health being poor, he left India with a small fortune. The Grantham, the ship in which he sailed, was captured by the French on 4 January 1759 and taken to Mauritius. Orme ultimately reached Nantes in France in the spring of 1760. In the autumn of 1760 Orme bought a house in Harley Street, London. He was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 8 November 1770, and from about 1769 till his death was salaried historiographer to the East India Company. In 1792 Orme retired to Great Ealing, Middlesex, where he died on 13 January 1801, in his 73rd year. He was buried on 21 January in the churchyard of St. Mary's, Ealing where there was a memorial tablet. He was an admirer of Samuel Johnson. Works In 1752 Orme drew up part of A General Idea of the Government and People of Indostan. This was afterwards completed, and posthumously published in Orme's Historical Fragments, edition of 1805. Orme was given access to the records at the India House, and obtained information from the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau, whom he visited in 1773 at his country seat in France. In London, Orme formed a library of ancient and modern classics, and arranged his materials – collected since 1742 – for an Indian history. In August 1763 he published the first volume of his major work, A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan from the year 1745; vol. ii. was published in two parts in 1778. Orme was complimented on his work by Sir William Jones. George Bruce Malleson, in his History of the French in India, thought Orme's history generally accurate, though failing to treat the French as principals in the story. Orme told Samuel Parr that in preparing the third volume he completely formed every sentence in his mind before writing it down. A third edition of the work appeared in 1780, a fourth in 1790, a fifth in 1799. There were other editions in 1803 and 1861 in London, and Madras. In 1782 Orme published Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, of the Morattoes, and of the English Concerns in Indostan from the year 1659. This was reprinted in 1805 (London), with a memoir of the author, giving