Page images
PDF
EPUB

the British dominions in Bengal.

Exclufive

ly of his anxiety to acquire, from local observation, a knowledge of the state of the country, and of the manners and characters of the natives, a prudent attention to the re-establishment of his health, which had fuffered from an unremitted application to his public duties as judge and magistrate, as well as a regard for that of Lady Jones, now rendered the journey expedient. In the beginning of 1786, after the recess of the court, he had an opportunity of executing his plan, and repaired to Chatigan by fea, in February.

A fhort time before his departure, a difcuffion had taken place between the judges of the fupreme court of judicature, and the executive government of Bengal, respecting a refolution adopted by the latter, altering the mode in which the falaries of the judges had been paid. They remonftrated against the refolution, and the letter written by Sir William Jones to Sir J. Macpherson on the occafion, is so strongly characteristic of that independent spirit which he always poffeffed,

that on this account it merits infertion. The remainder of his correspondence of this year, as far as it is proper to lay it before the public, follows in the order of its dates.

Sir William Jones to J. Macpherson, Bart.

MY DEAR SIR,

Phenix Sloop, Feb. 5, 1786.

Had I known where Captain Light lived in Calcutta, I would not have troubled you with the annexed letter, but I must request you to forward it to him. It is an answer to an excellent letter from him, which I received near a twelvemonth ago. I anxiously hope he has completed (what no other European could begin) a version of the Siamese code.

My voyage to the eastern coaft will, I trust, be very pleasant, and I hope we shall make our part good against the scoundrel Peguers; though if we defcry a fleet of boats, I believe it will be wiser to retreat on the wings of the

Captain Light was appointed superintendant of a new settlement at Penang, or Prince of Wales's Island. He was thoroughly conversant in the Malay dialect.

Phoenix; for I am not poet enough to believe, that another will rife from her ashes.

I lament that our refpective engagements have prevented our meeting often, fince the end of the rains; but fix or seven hours in the morning, and two or three in the evening, spent in unremitted labour for the last three months, fatigued me fo much that I had no leifure for fociety, scarcely any for natural repofe. My laft act was to sign our letter to your board on the fubject of our falaries, and I would have called upon you to expoftulate amicably on the measure you had purfued, if I had not wished to fpare you the pain of defending indefenfible steps, and the difficulty of finding reafons to fupport the most unreasonable conduct. Many paffages in the letter were foftened by my brethren, for I, who have long been habituated to ancient fimplicity, am ever inclined both to write and speak as I think and feel; and I fhould certainly have asked, if we had converfed on this matter, whether diftreffing and pinching the judges, and making them contemptible in the

eyes of the natives, and of their own fervants, was, as you expreffed yourself last summer, affifting them with heart and hand; or whether forming refolutions, as the fub-treafurer wrote me word three weeks ago concerning them, of which they were the last men in the settlement to hear, was intended as a return for that perfect cordiality, as far as honefty permitted, which I had affured you and Mr. Stables, to be one of the golden rules which I had early refolved to pursue in my judicial character.

In a word, the measure is fo totally indefenfible, that it would have given me as much pain as yourself, to have difcuffed it. I have marked the progrefs of this business from the morning, when I received Mr. M.'s note; and I am well perfuaded, that the invafion of our property, was not an idea conceived or approved by you, but forced on you by fome financier, who was himself deluded by a conceit of impartiality, not confilering that the cafes were by no means parallel; under this perfuafion, I beg you to

believe, that the measure has not yet made any change in the fincere eftcem, with which

I am, dear Sir,

Your faithful humble fervant,

WILLIAM JONES.

Sir William Jones to Thomas Caldicott, Esq.

Chatigan, Feb. 21, 1786.

I have been fo loaded with bufi

nefs, that I deferred writing to you, till it was too late to write much, and when the term ended, was obliged, for the fake of my wife's health and my own, to spend a few weeks in this Indian Montpelier, where the hillocks are covered with pepper vines, and sparkle with bloffoms of the coffee tree; but the defcription of the place would fill a volume, and I can only write a short letter to fay, fi vales, bene eft; valeo.

Sir William Jones to George Hardynge, Efq. Feb. 22, 1786. A word to you, no! though you have more of wisdom (et verbum fapienti, &c.) than I

« PreviousContinue »