(1830–1833)

EMBASSY TO EUROPE

1830. November 19—Rammohun sails from Calcutta. 1831. January—Calls at Cape Town. April 8—Arrives in Liverpool, visits Manchester, and reaches London. May and July—Resides in Regent Street. May—Addresses Unitarian Association. July 6—Dines with East India Company. Removes residence to Bedford Square. August 19—Revenue System of India. September 19—Judicial System of India. September 28—Condition of India. September—Is presented to the King. 1832. June—Reform Bill finally passed. July 14—Settlement of India by Europeans. October—Rammohun Roy in Paris. 1833. January—In London again. First Reformed Parliament meets. July 11—Appeal against the abolition of Suttee rejected by Parliament. July 24—East India Bill read a third time in the Commons. August 20—Received Royal Assent. Slavery Emancipation Act. Factory Act. September—R. Roy leaves London for Stapleton Hill, near Bristol. September 9—Mr. Estlin called in. September 27—Death of R. Roy. October 18—His Burial. The significance of Rammohun Roy’s visit to Europe can scarcely be exaggerated. At first sight indeed it is in some danger of being overlooked. We are tempted to consider the last three years of the Reformer’s life a mere appendix or postscript to a career already complete. We are apt to suppose the full tale of his great services for India made up when he left her soil. He had initiated the Hindu Theistic movement. He had given it permanent literary expression. He had selected or indicated the order of Scriptures more peculiarly its own. He had seen it finally housed and endowed. He had moreover successfully inaugurated native journalism. He had launched Dr. Duff’s great educational enterprise. The cause of English education which he had championed was now on the eve of official victory. And he had witnessed the abolition of Suttee. What follows these achievements may wear to the unreflective observer a semblance of anti-climax, or at best of mere stage pageant after the real work was done. But a deeper discernment will soon dissipate this impression. Rammohun’s three years in the West form the crown and consummation of his life-work. They were spent away from the scene of his regular labours and under widely different conditions; they were shadowed by failing health and saddened by misplaced confidence; but they follow in strict logical and genetic succession. They complete the continuity. They supply the dramatic culmination of Rammohun’s half century of service to his country and his kind. The epoch they mark in Hindu development only confirms and extends his religious record. He was the first Brāhman to cross the ocean.¹ He was the first Hindu of eminence who dared to break the spell which for ages the sea had laid on India. He set a conspicuous precedent to the host of educated Hindus who have since studied and travelled in Europe. The consequences for his countrymen are such as to make this act alone sufficient to secure for its author a lasting distinction. Its Imperial importance is not less striking. Rammohun Roy’s presence in this country made the English people aware, as they had never been before, of the dignity, the culture, and the piety of the race they had conquered in the East. India became incarnate in him, and dwelt among us, and we beheld her glory. In the court of the King, in the halls of the legislature, in the select coteries of fashion, in the society of philosophers and men of letters, in Anglican church and Nonconformist meeting-house, in the privacy of many a home, and before the wondering crowds of Lancashire operatives, Rammohun Roy stood forth the visible and personal embodiment of our Eastern empire. Wherever he went, there went a stately refutation of the Anglo-Indian insolence which saw in an Indian fellow-subject only a “black man” or a “nigger.” As he had interpreted England to India, so now he interpreted India to England. He was the first great representative of the Hindu race at the Seat of Empire, and the contrast between official London and official Calcutta in their treatment of him showed the effect of his personal presence at headquarters. He came, too, at a time of crucial transition in the political history of the United Kingdom. He was an eager and sympathetic spectator of the stupendous revolution achieved by the first Reform Bill. The process then began which has by successive extensions of the franchise transformed the government of this nation in fifty years from a close oligarchy to a democracy. While he was here, he saw the East India Company changed by statute from a trading concern into a political organization: and that was practically the last renewal of its charter, prior to its replacement, in 1858, by the Imperial Government.² He saw the Act pass which abolished slavery throughout the British dominions. The period of his visit also covers the passing of the Factory Act and the beginnings of the Tractarian movement. The Manchester and Liverpool railway had been opened only a month or two before he left India. He was here, in a word, when the New England was being born out of the heart of Old England,—the New England of democracy, of social and industrial reform, of Anglican revival, and of Imperial policy tempered by Nonconformist Conscience. And at that decisive era, he was present as the noble and precocious type of the New India which has been growing up under British rule. In him the New England first became acquainted with the New India. That is a connection which has already borne much fruit, and which seems destined to play a greater part in the near future. And if we glance beyond the limits of India and of Empire, we can hardly fail to see in Rammohun’s visit a landmark in the general history of modern civilization. The West had long gone to the East. With him the East began to come to the West. India has followed in his wake, and Japan and even China have followed in the wake of India. Leading scions of the hoariest civilizations are now eager pupils in the schools of the youngest civilizations. As a consequence the East is being rapidly Occidentalized; and there are signs, not a few, of a gradual Orientalizing of the West. This movement towards the healing of the schism which has for ages divided mankind, and the effort to intermingle more thoroughly the various ingredients of humanity, are rich in promise for the humanizing and unifying of man. The role which Rammohun Roy had played in this world-drama among his own countrymen was fitly crowned by his appearance in the chief city of the globe. We are anticipating, it is true, but in following the kaleidoscopic variety of the reformer’s European experiences we need to keep clearly in mind the world-historic import of the entire event. Otherwise the unity and continuity of a great lifework might seem to be dissipated in a crowd of details. The cosmopolitan character of the man received fresh and striking illustration from the direction of his mind during the time of his departure. He was not weighed down with the thought of separation from home and friends, or with vague forebodings as to the outcome of his momentous enterprise. He was simply full of the latest French Revolution. News had just reached Calcutta of the famous Three Days (July 27—29, 1830): and, “so great was his enthusiasm that,” we are told, “he could think and talk of nothing else!” He viewed it as a triumph of liberty and rejoiced accordingly.³ This is the testimony of James Sutherland, a friend of Rammohun, who sailed with him to England. His narrative of the voyage⁴ sheds so interesting a light on the conduct of the great Hindu that we cannot do better than reproduce portions of it here:

On ship-board Rammohun Roy took his meals in his own cabin, and at first suffered considerable inconvenience from the want of a separate fireplace, having nothing but a common choola on board. His servants, too, fell desperately sea-sick, (though, as if his ardour supported him against it, he himself never felt this malady at all) and took possession of his cabin, never moving from it, and making it as may easily be conceived, no enviable domicile; in fact they compelled him to retreat to the lockers; but still the kindness of his nature would not allow him to remove them. The greater part of the day he read, chiefly I believe, Sanskrit and Hebrew. In the forenoon and the evening he took an airing on deck, and always got involved in an animated discussion. After dinner when the cloth was removed and the dessert was on the table, he would come out of his cabin also and join in the conversation and take a glass of wine. He was always cheerful and so won upon the esteem of all on board that there was quite a competition who should pay him the most attention, and even the sailors seemed to render him any little service in their power. . . His equanimity was quite surprising In more than one case everything in his cabin was quite afloat owing to the sea washing in . . . but it never disturbed his serenity. If anything threw him off his equilibrium of temperament, it was the prevalence of contrary winds, because of his anxiety to get on, and his alarm lest the great question of the Company’s charter should come on before he arrived in England. He put ashore at the Cape for only an hour or two. Returning on board, he met with a nasty accident. The gangway ladder had not been properly secured and he got a serious fall, “from which he was lame for eighteen months afterwards” and indeed never finally recovered. But no bodily suffering could repress his mental ardour. Two French frigates, under the revolutionary flag, the glorious tri-colour, were lying in Table Bay; and lame as he was, he would insist on visiting them. The sight of these colours seemed to kindle the flame of his enthusiasm, and to render him insensible to pain. . . . His reception was, of course, worthy of the French character and of him. He was conducted over the vessels and endeavoured to convey by the aid of interpreters how much he was delighted to be under the banner that waved over their decks,—an evidence of the glorious triumph of right over might; and as he left the vessels he repeated emphatically “Glory, glory, glory to France!”

Some of the most distinguished people at the Cape left their cards for him at the Hotel, and some called on board, but not the Governor . . .

As we approached England, his anxiety to know what was passing there became most urgent, and he implored the captain to lose no opportunity of speaking to any vessel outward-bound. At length near the Equator, . . we fell in with a vessel which supplied us with papers announcing the change of Ministry⁵ and his exultation at the intelligence may be easily conceived.

We talked of nothing else for days….It was in its probable beneficial effect on the fate of India that he regarded the event as a subject of triumph. When we got within a few days’ sail of the Channel we fell in with a vessel only four days out, that brought us intelligence of the extraordinary circumstance of the second reading of the Reform Bill being carried in the House in which the Tories had so long commanded majorities, by a single vote!…Rammohun Roy was again elated with the prospect….A few days afterwards, at that eventful crisis in our history….Rammohun Roy first landed in Great Britain.

The effect of this contagious enthusiasm of a whole people in favour of a grand political change upon such a mind as his was of course electrifying, and he caught up the tone of the new society in which he found himself with so much ardour that at one time I had fears that this fever of excitement… would prove too much for him… Mr. Sutherland gives a vivid description of the first days of Rammohun Roy in England.⁶ He tells us: His arrival was no sooner known in Liverpool than every man of any distinction in the place hastened to call upon him, and he got into inextricable confusion with all his engagements, making half a dozen sometimes for the same evening…He was out morning, noon, and night…On all occasions, whether at breakfast or dinner, a number of persons was assembled to meet him; and he was constantly involved in animated discussions on politics or theology. The first public place Rammohun Roy attended was fitly enough a Unitarian Chapel, where a Mr. Grundy delivered a sermon “rather too metaphysical” for Mr. Sutherland, but greatly appreciated by the illustrious Hindu. It was a homily on the duty of unlimited charity in regard to other men’s creeds. “When the sermon was over the scene that ensued was curious. Instead of dispersing as usual, the congregation thronged up every avenue in crowding to get a near view of him as he passed out.” On his way out, Rammohun was moved to sudden grief by the sight of a mural tablet in memory of a Mr. Tait whom he had known in India. On recovering from the shock, He attempted to express his feelings, and as he did so with propriety, though with hesitation, the surprise and excitement of the crowd at hearing a native of India address them in their native tongue was extreme, and it was near an hour after the service terminated ere we could make our way out of church…He had to shake hands with many who had waited for that purpose. To some his adopted son was scarcely less an object of curiosity, and to him it was fine fun; he seemed to enjoy being stared at amazingly. At night Rammohun Roy went to an Anglican church and heard the Rev. Mr. Scoresby, formerly a sailor, and now a man of great scientific reputation, and a good Evangelical. Of this discourse, too, the distinguished hearer expressed his admiration. Among the earliest invitations received by Rammohun after his arrival was one to the house of William Roscoe. The venerable historian, who had been a prisoner through paralysis for many years, and was now within a few weeks of his end, had previously corresponded with Rammohun, read his writings, and earnestly longed to see him. The interview which resulted is described as exceedingly affecting.⁷ The first impression produced by the Hindu in the drawing-rooms of Liverpool magnates, as well as in more public places, seems to have been one of profound surprise. To hear a Brahman zealously advocating Reform, and, with an earnestness and emphasis that bespoke his sincerity, expatiating on the blessings of civil and religious liberty, of course amazed our countrymen; and perhaps they were not less surprised, if the discussion took a religious turn, to find him quoting text upon text with the utmost facility, and proving himself more familiar with their sacred books than themselves. Two wealthy Quaker families, Cropper and Benson by name, paid him special attention, and brought him into social fellowship with persons of all faiths. At one of these Quaker parties “there were High Churchmen, Baptists, Unitarians, and Deists, all meeting in perfect harmony and Christian charity”. At the house of Mr. William Rathbone he met the phrenologist Spurzheim, with whom personally he was on excellent terms, but for whose “science” he had only good-humoured ridicule. Theology and politics were, as has been said, the favourite themes of colloquy; but an attempt—at Mr. Rathbone’s—to draw Rammohun into confession of his own precise religious conviction ended in failure. The Rajah stayed only a few days in Liverpool. He was eager to be present in the House of Commons on the second reading of the Reform Bill. So he hurried on to London about the end of April. But his stay in Liverpool was a fitting prelude to the general tenor of his visit, and has therefore claimed slightly fuller notice. The éclat of his first reception followed him on his way to the metropolis. Says Mr. Sutherland: The scene at Manchester, when he visited the great manufactories, was very amusing. All the workmen, I believe, struck work, and men, women, and children rushed in crowds to see “the King of Ingee”! Many of the great unwashed insisted upon shaking hands with him; some of the ladies who had not stayed to make their toilets very carefully wished to embrace him, and he with difficulty escaped….The aid of the police was required to make way for him to the manufactories, and when he had entered, it was necessary to close and bolt the gate to keep out the mob….After shaking hands with hundreds of them he turned round and addressed them, hoping they would all support the King and his Ministers in obtaining Reform; so happily had he caught the spirit of the people. He was answered with loud shouts, “The King and Reform for ever!” On the road to London, wherever he stopped, the inn was surrounded. On the night of his arrival in the capital a rare honour awaited him. He got into London late in the evening, and being dissatisfied with the rooms assigned him in “a filthy inn in Newgate Street,” went on to the Adelphi Hotel which he reached about ten o’clock. He had not told his friends when he was coming, but they had learned from other sources, and had prepared rooms for him at an hotel in Bond Street. Yet, strange to say, long after he had retired to rest, the venerable Bentham, who had not for many years called on anyone or left his house, I believe, except to take his habitual walk in the garden, found his way to the hotel, and left a characteristic note for him. This signal compliment from the leading British philosopher of the time must have greatly gratified the stranger.⁸ Rammohun took up his residence at 125 Regent Street, and for some months held court there as real, if informal, Ambassador from the people of India. As soon (says Sutherland) as it was known in London that the great Brahman philosopher had arrived, the most distinguished men in the country crowded to pay their respects to him; and he had scarcely got into his lodgings in Regent Street, when his door was besieged with carriages from eleven in the morning till four in the afternoon; until this constant state of excitement (for he caught the tone of the day and vehemently discussed politics with everyone) actually made him ill, . . . when his physicians gave positive orders to his footman not to admit visitors. He became, in short, the lion of the season, and the Dowager Duchess of Cork, a noted lion-hunter, early marked him out for her prey. Mr. Sutherland comments with surprise upon Rammohun’s being “for a considerable time much more in Tory than in Whig circles”, even being introduced into the House of Lords by the Duke of Cumberland. It was his urgent solicitations which prevented the Tory peers voting against the Indian Jury Bill. Considering the round terms in which he rated the Tories to their face for opposing the Reform Bill, their hospitable behaviour towards him does them no small credit. “With Lord Brougham”, Sutherland tells us, “he was on terms of the closest and most confidential intimacy⁹; and, in short, he was honoured and esteemed by men of the most opposite opinions”. That he should have been in great demand among the Unitarians, with whose leaders he had corresponded for years, and whose cause at home and abroad he had done so much to promote, was of course inevitable. He had not been long in London before a special meeting of the Unitarian Association was held in his honour.¹⁰ He was welcomed by Dr. Carpenter and others as ‘brother’ and ‘fellow-labourer’. Rammohun had not yet recovered from the illness which his excessive popularity had brought on him, and responded with manifest exhaustion. A few sentences may be quoted from his brief speech: ‘With respect to your faith I may observe that I too believe in one God, and that I believe in almost all the doctrines that you do; but I do this for my own salvation and for my own peace.’ ‘I have honour for the appellation of Christian.’ ‘Scripture seconds your system of religion, common sense is always on your side.’ ‘I am convinced that your success sooner or later is certain.’ Rammohun continued to the last in close communication or personal fellowship with the chief Unitarian families of the time, the Estlins, the Carpenters, the Foxes, and the like. We have a letter of his to Rev. W. J. Fox,¹¹ dated May 31, 1831, acknowledging with truly Oriental courtesy certain books which the author had sent him, and hoping for an interchange of visits “as soon as I am fully recovered”; and on June 10th, a note assuring Mr. Fox “it will give me more real gratification to visit you in your cottage, as you call it, than to visit a palace. But as I happen to be engaged for dinner every day till the 19th, I would prefer seeing you at breakfast……” This shows us something of the throng of social engagements which claimed Rammohun. The visit to breakfast was finally arranged, as we learn from a note of June 13th, in which the Rajah says, “I shall endeavour to bring my little youngster with me, agreeably to your kind request.” He also thanks Mr. Fox for the sermon sent him, adding, “After the discourse which I had the supreme gratification of hearing delivered by you, I must read anything that comes from your pen both with interest and instruction.” A note to his booksellers, of May 1, 1832, shows that he was a regular subscriber to the Monthly Repository, the Unitarian organ. He frequently attended Unitarian places of worship. But Unitarians found, to their considerable surprise, that he was by no means prepared to identify himself wholly with their cause. His first Sunday in England was typical. He divided his attendance between Unitarian and Anglican churches. In fact the balance seemed latterly to turn in favour of the Anglican. It was no Unitarian divine, but the Rev. Dr. Kenney, the “Established” incumbent of St. Olaves, Southwark, whom Rammohun Roy came to style “his parish priest.” The ground assigned for this choice is the Hindu’s “benignity, charity, liberality to the creeds of others, and honesty in the great political struggle for Reform.” There is a dash of humour about the fact of the author of Reasons for ‘frequenting a Unitarian place of worship instead of the numerously attended established Churches’ coming round in the end to style an Established clergyman his “parish priest”. But of this more anon. Rammohun’s political sagacity in supposing that his influence would tell more decisively for India through his personal if unofficial presence in London than through the usual official channels connecting the subject race with the supreme government, was abundantly confirmed by the event. Whatever flaw official etiquette might find in the validity of his credentials was more than covered by the acceptance which the ultimate authority accorded to his mission. It is said¹² that Ministers of the Crown “recognised his embassy and his title” as the ennobled representative of the Emperor of Delhi. But the much more important fact was that the people of England, in their own spontaneous way, acknowledged him as Ambassador from the people of India. And this fact, however trying to official nerves, could not be ignored. The East India Company did indeed adhere stiffly to its refusal to recognise him either as Envoy from Delhi or as Rajah. But it could no longer afford to treat him as cavalierly as it had treated him in Calcutta. Mr. Sutherland remarks somewhat sardonically on the striking alteration in their demeanour to Rammohun Roy which his reception in England effected among the Anglo-Indian officials. The very same men who had treated him with scorn in India now eagerly courted his acquaintance. The change of attitude was conspicuously signalized on the 6th of July, 1831, when a dinner was given to the distinguished stranger by the East India Company. “It was what was called a family dinner in contradistinction to the grand feast given upon the eve of the departure of a Governor for India.”¹³ It was nevertheless quite a State affair. The Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Company presided, and some four-score guests were present. In proposing the toast of the evening the Chairman chiefly indulged in personal eulogy, but added the hope that Rammohun’s reception would encourage other ‘able and influential’ Hindus to visit England. Rammohun in reply was equally discreet. ‘That day was one,’ he said, ‘to which he had looked forward with the greatest degree of expectation. It rejoiced him to be seated amongst a body of gentlemen who had with such humanity and kindness carried on the government of India.’ He contrasted the sanguinary anarchy which had prevailed in India prior to the advent of the British with its present peace and progress. ‘He felt most grateful to the various illustrious persons who had filled from time to time the office of Governor-General,—to Lords Cornwallis, Wellesly, and Hastings, (he is careful not to mention Lord Amherst),—ay and to Lord William Bentinck, who ‘had done all in his power to gain the good opinion of the natives of India and so raise them in the scale of nations. He felt proud and grateful at what India was experiencing,’ and hoped she would ever enjoy a government equally popular, kind, conciliatory, and human. The chronicler observes that “it was rather curious to see the Brahman surrounded by hearty feeders upon turtle and venison and champagne, and touching nothing himself but rice and cold water.” This public honour would certainly not lessen the influence which Rammohun possessed as an authority on all Indian questions. It was only natural that the Select Committee of the House of Commons which was appointed in February and re-appointed in June to consider the renewal of the Company’s Charter should invite him to appear before it. This request Rammohun declined, but tendered his evidence in the form of successive “Communications to the Board of Control,” which besides duly appearing in the Blue Books were published by him in a separate volume.¹⁴ The first of these was dated August 19, 1831, and dealt with the Revenue. It consists of two parts, one setting forth the facts and remedies proposed in question and answer, the other a summary paper of proposals. Rammohun here appears as the champion of the rack-rented ryot, or cultivator. While the Zemindars or landholders had been greatly benefited by the Perpetual Settlement of 1793, while their wealth and the wealth of the community generally had increased, the poor cultivator was no better off. “Such is the melancholy condition of the agricultural labourers,” he wrote, “that it always gives me the greatest pain to allude to it.” The remedy he asked for was in the first place the prohibition of any further rise in rent, and secondly—rents being now so exorbitantly high as to leave the ryot in a state of extreme misery,—a reduction in the revenue demanded from the zemindar so as to ensure a reduction in the ryot’s rent. The decrease in revenue he would meet by increasing taxes upon luxuries, or by employing as collectors low-salaried natives instead of high-salaried Europeans. He also approved of the settlement in India of a few model landlords from England, but was careful to stipulate that they should not be drawn from the lower classes. He concluded with an earnest appeal “to any and every authority to devise some mode of alleviating the present miseries of the agricultural peasantry of India.” In an appendix he urged the Imperial utility of this policy. To recognise the indefeasible rights of the ryot in the soil would make him loyal to the power that secured them. “The saving that might be effected by this liberal and generous policy, through the substituting of a militia force for a great part of the present standing army, would be much greater than any gain that could be realized by any system of increasing land revenue.” This argument was backed up by a quotation from Saadi, which puts Rammohun’s ideal for British rule in India in a nutshell: Be on friendly terms with thy subjects. And rest easy about the warfare of thine enemies; For to an upright prince his people is an army. Throughout this communication the spokesman of the New India showed himself once more to be no mere advocate of the moneyed and educated classes, but the real tribune of the toiling and oppressed poor. In his Questions and Answers on the Judicial System of India, which was dated September 19, 1831, he proposed many and extensive reforms. Among the principal measures he advocated were the substitution of English for Persian as the official language of the courts of law; the appointment of native assessors in the civil courts; trial by jury, of which the Panchayet system was the native parallel; separation of the offices of judge and revenue commissioner; separation of judge and magistrate; codification of the criminal law and also of the civil law of India; and consultation with the local magnates before enacting laws. His Additional Queries respecting the condition of India, dated September 28, 1831, contained much valuable information. He recommended at the outset that “if the people of India were to be induced to abandon their religious prejudices and thereby become accustomed to the frequent and common use of a moderate proportion of animal food, the physical qualities of the people might be very much improved.”¹⁵ The moral condition of the people he found to be good at a distance from large towns and head-stations and courts of law; bad among townsfolk; and still worse among clerks of courts, zemindars’ agents, and the like. The people generally possessed “the same capability of improvement as any other civilized people.” Those about the courts of princes rather carried their politeness to an inconvenient extent… He declared the ancient families to be “decidedly disaffected” to British rule, and urged that the only policy which could ensure the attachment of the intelligent natives was to make them eligible for gradual promotion, by merit and abilty, to situations of trust and respectability in the State. In this same month of September, Rammohun Roy was presented to the King and added to his other distinctions that of being the first Brahman received at the British court. The incident is one that lends itself to the art of a great historical painter. The ceremony was the picturesque token of a significant moment in the evolution of empire. Rammohun was now a fully fledged member of the highest circles of society. Perhaps it was at this time that he was induced to depart from the “perfectly unostentatious” style of living which was to him habitual. “For a short time, about three months,” according to Sutherland, “he had yielded to advice that was anything but disinterested, and taken up his residence in a most magnificent abode in Cumberland Terrace, Regent’s Park, where he lived extravagantly.”¹⁶ Under the advice that was not disinterested; Mr. Sutherland is evidently referring to a man of whom we have heard before and who comes into unpleasant prominence in connection with the closing scenes of Rammohun’s career. Mr. Sandford Arnot was acting as assistant editor to Mr. Buckingham on the staff of the Calcutta Journal in 1823, when that newspaper roused the wrath of Acting Governor-General Adams, and when consequently he had to follow his chief into banishment from India.¹⁷ On Rammohun’s arrival in England, Mr. Sandford Arnot, doubtless on the strength of old acquaintance, was engaged as his secretary, and seems to have generally accompanied him.¹⁸ Unless this quondam journalist has been shamefully traduced, he was a low, cunning parasite. Having fastened on a rich and generous patron, whose position in a strange land made him peculiarly dependent on the guidance of British friends, he turned the opportunity without scruple to his own sordid account. In this as in other instances Rammohun showed himself—probably through excess of good nature—lacking in a wise choice of friends. Not that he was by any means a slave to the caprice of those he had chosen; as was shown in this very matter of residence. Sutherland tells us that “his good sense soon prevailed over this folly” of an extravagant establishment: He abandoned this splendid mansion and went to live with Mr. Hare, the brother of Mr. David Hare¹⁹ of Calcutta, in Bedford Square, where he continued while he was in London. He kept a plain chariot, with a coachman and footman in neat liveries; in fact adopted and adhered to the style of a private gentleman of moderate fortune, though still courted by the first men in the kingdom. Of the stately figure which so much impressed London society, it may be well to reproduce here two portraits drawn by different hands. The first is by his friend Mr. Sutherland, writing in the India Gazette, February 18, 1834. He says: Rammohun Roy surpassed the generality of his countrymen in his personal appearance almost as much as in his mental powers. In his prime of manhood his figure was beyond the common height, and was stout and muscular in proportion. His countenance wore an expression of blended dignity and benevolence that charmed at first sight and put his visitors at their ease, while it checked an irreverent familiarity. In the latter part of his life, which closed in his sixtieth year, his manly figure began to droop, perhaps not so much from age as the weight of thought and the toil of study. But his fine dark eye, though it lost something of its fire, retained its intelligence and amenity to the last. The other sketch is by “R. M. M.,”²⁰ and appeared in the Court Journal for October 5 1833: The Rajah, in the outer man, was cast in nature’s finest mould; his figure was manly and robust: his carriage dignified: the forehead towering, expansive and commanding: the eye dark, restless, full of brightness and animation, yet liquid and benevolent and frequently glistening with a tear when affected by the deeper sensibility of the heart; the nose of Roman form and proportions; lips full and indicative of independence; the whole features deeply expressive, with a smile of soft and peculiar fascination which won irresistibly the suffrages to whom it was addressed. His manners were characterized by suavity blended with dignity, verging towards either point according to the company in which he might be placed. To ladies his politeness was marked by the most delicate manner, and his felicitous mode of paying them a compliment gained him very many admirers among the high-born beauties of Britain. In conversation with individuals of every rank and of various nations and professions, he passed with the utmost ease from one language to another, suiting his remarks to each and all in excellent taste, and commanding the astonishment and respect of his hearers.

It was in argument, however, that this exalted Brahmin was most conspicuous: he seemed to grapple with truth intuitively, and called in invective, raillery, sarcasm, and sometimes a most brilliant wit, to aid him in confuting his opponent; if precedent were necessary, a remarkably retentive memory and extensive reading in many languages supplied him with a copious fund; and at times with a rough, unsparing, ruthless hand he burst asunder the meshes of sophistry, error and bigotry, in which it might be attempted to entangle him. Of Rammohun’s social life in London, as of his entire European visit, very much is told in Miss Mary Carpenter’s Last Days in England of the Rajah,²¹ which need not be repeated here. We catch glimpses of him at sundry sorts of society functions, always the centre of admiring attention, always too, the thorough Oriental gentleman, versatile, emotional, yet dignified. His gracious manners and his especial deference to women greatly ingratiated him with the fair sex, several of whom have left on record warmly appreciative reminiscences. Mrs. Le Breton²² who was a near neighbour of the Hares, tells of her aunt frankly confessing that “his feelings for women, still more his admiration of the mental accomplishments of English ladies, won our hearts.” Mrs. Le Breton goes on: I often met him in London…at large parties and even balls, where he would converse on subjects that seemed rather unsuitable to the place,—the Trinity and other sacred things which were occupying his own thoughts. The same lady has preserved an instructive incident which explains better than volumes of analysis the fatuous failure of the baser sort of Anglo-Indian: At a party at a friend of ours—Captain Mauleverer, who had known the Rajah in India and was very much attached to him,—we…overheard one of the guests, an Indian officer of rank, say angrily “What is that black fellow doing here?” A shocking speech to those who loved and honoured him so much! Such is the folly which pride works in the less worthy members of a conquering race. Rammohun might be—and was—scholar and statesman, philanthropist and religious reformer, the friend and superior of many a Governor and Minister; yet to this military bully he was only ‘that black fellow’; and therefore to be chevied out of genteel society. We nevertheless find Rammohun thoroughly at home among the young Tory bloods, not hesitating to rate them soundly as “vagabonds” and worse for impeding the progress of Reform.²³ Fanny Kemble was one of the celebrities who have left on record appreciative reminiscences of their meeting with the Rajah. She was introduced to him at the house of Mr. Basil Montagu, a mutual friend. He was delighted to find her already acquainted with the Hindu drama, but was surprised to learn that she did not know Sakuntala, which he regarded as the most remarkable play which India had produced, and which Goethe called “the most wonderful production of human genius.” The Rajah subsequently sent her a copy of Sir William Jones’ translation, but she failed to find in it the beauty and sublimity he attributed to it. Rammohun was evidently profoundly susceptible to dramatic impressions, as may be seen from an entry in Mrs. Kemble’s diary for December 22, 1831: In the evening the play was “Isabella”; the house very bad. I played very well. The Rajah Rammohun Roy was in the Duke of Devonshire’s box, and went into fits of crying, poor man! This is a facet in a many-sided character which we are glad to have preserved. It is pleasant to know that the great reformer was not above tears, even over a well-acted play. We owe another instructive glimpse of the man to the same keen and kindly eye. The young actress records her presence at ‘a pleasant party’ at the Montagus’ on March 6, 1832, where for an hour she ‘recovered her love of dancing,’ and where she met the Rajah. We presently began a delightful nonsense conversation, which lasted a considerable time, and amused me extremely. His appearance is very striking. His picturesque dress and colour make him, of course, a remarkable object in a London ballroom. His countenance, besides being very intellectual, has an expression of great sweetness and benignity.²⁴ After a threatened break “we resumed our conversation together and kept up a brief interchange of persiflage which made us both laugh very much.” Three days later she notes receiving “a charming letter and some Indian books from that most amiable of all the wise men of the East.” One smiles to imagine what the good Baptists at Serampore Mission would think now of their quondam associate and literary combatant. These visits to the playhouse in the society of one of the first peers of the realm, and these gay frivolities with an actress would doubtless only confirm their theological misgivings as to the future fate of the “intelligent heathen.” Rammohun had certainly no scruples about theatre going. On June 12, 1833, we find him writing to Miss Kiddell offering to accompany that lady and her friends to Astley’s in the evening. Among other celebrities which Rammohun met about this time was Robert Owen, the father of British Socialism. The religious and the economic reformers were guests of Dr. Arnot, and Owen did his best to convert Rammohun to Socialism. As the Scot finally lost his temper, the Hindu was considered to have had the best of the argument.²⁵ It is interesting to remember that Mr. John Hare could call himself in a letter to Mr. Estlin (of March 25, 1834) “a poor Owenite.” The broad humanness of the Rajah’s character is further shown in a little incident recorded by Miss Carpenter. The infant son of the Rev. D. Dawson was named after him ‘Rammohun Roy’. The Rajah was actually present at the baptismal ceremony, and subsequently evinced a lively interest in the little fellow, calling frequently to see him. In fact, Mrs. Dawson wrote, “His visits to me were generally paid to me in my nursery, as he insisted on coming up so as to visit his namesake at the same time and not to interrupt me.”²⁶ Whatever the measure of perpetuity vouchsafed to the religious movement begun by Rammohun, this glimpse of the stately and courtly Brahman in the nursery, eager to see the baby and thoughtful of the mother’s convenience, will, one may hope, be treasured by his followers to the very last of them as one of the sweetest and most beautiful memories of their Founder. Probably no index of character is so decisive as the attitude assumed to mother and child; and especially of religious leaders does this rule hold. Rammohun Roy in the nursery will be remembered by Brahmo mothers and Brahmo children much more vividly and endearingly than in any of his appearances in Court, or Senate-house, or Church, or even in the group of loving disciples. Amid these varied social experiences, Rammohun never seems to have forgotten the scrutiny to which his conduct would be subjected by public opinion in India. We find him on January 27, 1832, writing to a friend who had invited him to attend a Unitarian Anniversary dinner, on February 8th, in terms which reveal his constant watchfulness and sensitive regard to Indian criticism. He says: It is truly mortifying for me to hesitate even for a moment to comply with a request of one whom I so highly esteem and respect. But I have before explained to you how much attending public dinners might be injurious to my interest in India and disagreeable to the feeling of my friends there. When you recollect, my dear Sir, that I attended the anniversary of the Unitarian Association in defiance of the positive advice of my medical attendants, who declared that my joining so large an assembly while I was troubled with inflammation would endanger my life, I feel satisfied that you will not attribute my absence to indifference about your success.

I was induced to attend Dr. Williams’ anniversary dinner under an assurance from the Rev. Mr. Aspland that the party would consist of friends who felt a warm interest on my behalf. But even then I felt all the time disquiet and low spirited. However should there be any divine service before dinner at the meeting or at your Chapel, I shall be very happy to attend at the service and return home. I sincerely feel the absence of our esteemed friend Dr. Bowring. He finally consented to join the party “after dinner at 9 o’clock….at the London Tavern,” so we learn from a note of his of February 7. This dislike of his to public dinners was evidently due to their publicity. We have already observed the readiness with which he accepted invitations to private dinner parties—at one time dining out nine successive days; but these not being reported in the newspapers would not be so likely to reach the ears of his Hindu opponents, who were eagerly seeking occasions to prove against him breach of caste.²⁷ But about this time Rammohun’s chief preoccupation was political rather than social or ceremonial. The agitation for Reform was sweeping on to the final crisis. The First Bill introduced by Lord John Russell as Rammohun was nearing England (March 1, 1831), and defeated in Committee in April, had been followed by an immediate Dissolution. The Second Bill was carried through the new House of Commons by September 22, but on October 8 was rejected by the Lords, and the country was brought to the verge of civil war. The Third Reform Bill was carried through all its stages in the Lower House before the end of the following March (1832); and the nation awaited the action of the Lords in a wild fever of excitement. Rammohun shared in the general agony of suspense. He felt that it was no mere British business, but that it vitally affected the fortunes of mankind, and in no place more than in India. In a letter to Miss Kiddell, of date “48 Bedford Square, March 31,” he says: I had lately the pleasure of seeing the Rev. Dr. Carpenter, and hearing from that truly venerable minister that Miss Castle and yourself were perfectly well and deeply interested in the cause of Reform, on the success of which the welfare of England, nay of the world, depends. I should have long ere this visited Bristol and done myself the honour of paying you my long promised visit, but I have been impatiently waiting in London to know the result of the Bill. I feel very much obliged by your kind offers of attention to my comforts while I am in that part of the country, of which I hope to be able to avail myself as soon as my mind is relieved on this subject. It will be remembered that on the momentous measure being introduced in the Upper Chamber, the peers showed signs of yielding to the storm of popular agitation. The Second Reading was carried on April 14th by 9 votes. On the 27th Rammohun was sending to a lady friend in the country,—Mrs. Woodford by name,—copies of his Remarks on India and a pamphlet on the abolition of Suttee; and in the accompanying letter he referred to Lord William Bentinck’s Anti-Suttee administration and then to the victory over the peers, as follows: You will, I am sure, be highly gratified to learn that the present Governor-General of India has sufficient courage to afford them [Hindu widows] protection against their selfish relations, who cruelly used to take advantage of their tender feelings in the name and under the cloak of religion.

It must have afforded Mr. Woodford and yourself much gratification to learn by the first conveyance the division on the second reading of the Reform Bill. The struggles are not merely between the reformers and anti-reformers; but between liberty and oppression throughout the world; between justice and injustice, and between right and wrong. But from a reflection on the past events of history, we clearly perceive that liberal principles in politics and religion have been long gradually but steadily gaining ground, notwithstanding the opposition and obstinacy of despots and bigots. I am still unable to determine the period of my departure from London and my visit to you in the country. I may perhaps do myself that pleasure. After the peers had shown fight for the last time, and had at last (in June) been cowed into finally passing the Bill, which was followed by similar measures for Ireland and Scotland, the Rajah wrote to Mr. William Rathbone under date of July 31st: I am now happy to find myself fully justified in congratulating you and my other friends at Liverpool on the complete success of the Reform Bills, notwithstanding the violent opposition and want of political principle on the part of the aristocrats. The nation can no longer be a prey of the few who used to fill their purses at the expense, nay, to the ruin of the people, for a period of upwards of fifty years. The ministers have honestly and firmly discharged their duty and provided the people with means of securing their rights. I hope and pray that the mighty people of England may now in like manner do theirs, cherishing public spirit and liberal principles, at the same time banishing bribery, corruption, and selfish interests from public proceedings.

As I publicly avowed that in the event of the Reform Bill being defeated I would renounce my connection with this country, I refrained from writing to you or any other friend in Liverpool until I knew the result. Thank Heaven, I can now feel proud of being one of your fellow subjects, and heartily rejoice that I have the infinite happiness of witnessing the salvation of the nation, nay, of the whole world.

Pray remember me kindly to Mr. Cropper and Mr. Benson and present my best respects to Mrs. Rathbone and my love to the children…

P.S.—If the German philosopher is still at Liverpool, be good enough to remember me kindly to him, and inform him that we have succeeded in the reform question without having recourse to the principles of phrenology. One is glad to see that the Rajah did not forget the children when he wrote, and that he could not resist the chance of poking fun at the good-humoured Spurzheim. His public threat of renouncing British allegiance in case the peers triumphed might perhaps seem amusing to the lower type of Anglo-Indian mind,—the type that thought of him as only “that black fellow.” The spectacle of a solitary Hindu renouncing the British Empire and all its works because of its refusing a wider franchise, not to his Eastern countrymen, but to the people of England, might be so construed as to look positively funny. But Rammohun was conscious of being virtually Ambassador for India; and if the sympathies of the progressive Hindus whom he typified were estranged from an unreformed England, and given, say, to a more democratic France, the Oriental memories and aspirations of the French might find less difficulty in making trouble for us in India. In any case, it was the most pronounced protest the Hindu reformer could make; and at a time of world-crisis, as he conceived it, he must strike his heaviest stroke. It was stated, indeed, that should the Bill be defeated, he was resolved on leaving England and transferring himself and his allegiance to the United States. But we remember the intense enthusiasm he displayed for the tricolour when he first saw it at the Cape; and a further proof of his French sympathies was supplied by his visit to Paris in the autumn of the year.²⁸ While the people of England were thus successfully remodelling their own system of Government, the Select Committee of the House of Commons was busily employed, amid all the storm of semi-revolutionary agitation, in considering how the government of the people of India might be in its turn—though on a widely different plane,—advantageously remodelled. Rammohun, alive to the finger-tips with the significance of both phases of imperial reconstruction, was naturally most concerned with what directly affected his own countrymen. We have from his hand under date July 14th, 1832, a highly suggestive document which appeared in the General Appendix to the Report of this Select Committee, and was so submitted to Parliament. It consists of Remarks on Settlement in India by Europeans. It is a paper of rare personal and national importance. It supports the plea, which he had previously put forward both in speech and writing, for the removal of the restrictions imposed by the old Charter on the lease or purchase of lands by Europeans. He now enumerates nine advantages which he expects from the freedom asked for. European settlers would improve the agriculture and industry of the country, would help to dispel native superstitions and prejudices, would more readily secure improvements from Government, would be a check on oppression, native or British, would diffuse education through the land, would acquaint the public at home with what was going on in India as it appeared to other than official eyes, and would be an additional strength to the Government in case of invasion. The two remaining “advantages” must be quoted in full because of their daring forecast of remote possibilities: The same cause would operate to continue the connection between Great Britain and India on a solid and permanent footing, provided only that the latter country be governed in a liberal manner, by means of Parliamentary superintendence and such other legislative checks in this country as may be devised and established. India may thus for an unlimited period enjoy union with England, and the advantage of her enlightened Government; and in return contribute to support the greatness of this country.

If, however, events should occur to effect a separation between the two countries, then still the existence of a large body of respectable settlers (consisting of Europeans and their descendants, professing Christianity, and speaking the English language in common with the bulk of the people, as well as possessed of superior knowledge, scientific, mechanical and political) would bring that vast Empire in the East to a level with other large Christian countries in Europe, and by means of its immense riches and extensive population, and by the help which may be reasonably expected from Europe, they (the settlers and their descendants) may succeed sooner or later in enlightening the surrounding nations of Asia.²⁹ Certain disadvantages are then specified, with their remedies. The insolence, over-reaching, and discredit to the British name, which were feared, might be obviated by allowing to settle for the first twenty years at least, only “educated persons of character and capital,” by equal laws, and by the appointment of European pleaders in country courts. Then follows a strange look ahead: Some apprehend as the fourth possible danger, that if the population of India were raised to wealth, intelligence and public spirit by the accession and by the example of numerous respectable European settlers, the mixed community so formed would revolt (as the United States of America formerly did) against the power of Great Britain, and would ultimately establish independence. In reference to this, however, it must be observed that the Americans were driven to rebellion by misgovernment, otherwise they would not have revolted and separated themselves from England. Canada is a standing proof that an anxiety to effect a separation from the Mother Country is not the natural wish of a people even tolerably well ruled. The mixed community of India in like manner, so long as they are treated liberally and governed in an enlightened manner, will feel no disposition to cut off its connection with England which may be preserved with so much mutual benefit to both countries. Yet as before observed, if events should occur to effect a separation (which may arise from many accidental causes, about which it is vain to speculate or make predictions), still a friendly and highly advantageous commercial intercourse may be kept up between two free and Christian countries, united as they will then be by resemblance of language, religion, and manners. The fifth obstacle mentioned is the prejudicial effect of the climate on the health of Europeans. This, it is suggested, might be obviated to some extent by selecting the more salubrious spots for settlement. The paper concludes with a plea for at least a trial of the experiment.³⁰ The prospects unfolded here in close and rapid succession are almost enough to take one’s breath away. The means by which the anticipated results should be attained is a matter of minor importance. The hope of an extensive and permanent settlement of Europeans on Indian soil may have proved in the present stage of civilization utterly fallacious. The remarkable thing is the vision of the eventual condition of his country, however arrived at, as it disclosed itself to the mind of Rammohun Roy. He shows here with ample clearness the kind of India he desired, and to some extent at least expected to arise. It is an English-speaking India. He anticipates that the settlers and their descendants will “speak the English language in common with the bulk of the people.” It is, moreover,—and this is a matter of yet greater surprise—a Christian India. He looks to it being raised to a level with “other large Christian empires,” and speaks of England and and India as prospectively “two free and Christian countries, united by resemblance of religion.” It is, in a word, generally Anglicized India, possessing the opulence, intelligence and public spirit, and also the language, religion and manners of the English race. Nor is the Rajah in the slightest degree indisposed to contemplate the prospect of India as a nation politically independent. In any case he evidently desires to accept as her destiny the sublime role of the Enlightener of Asia. These five points constitute a singularly daring programme. Never has the spokesman of the New India been so out-spoken before. Never has he drawn so liberally on the future. Yet most of the points are in the right line of his previous development. He had been throughout a consistent advocate for Europeanizing the Hindu intellect and the Hindu civilization. His sympathy with the struggle for national independence all over the world takes from his anticipation of a free and independent India any element of surprise. His hope that India would become a light to lighten the nations of the East was a natural product of his patriotism and love of rational culture. The one puzzling thing in this forecast is the prospect of a Christianized India. The cynic may be ready with the jibe that this part of the programme was strictly for British consumption. The Evangelical and Nonconformist public were shortly to show their strength by carrying through Parliament the abolition of West Indian Slavery; and the lure of a converted East Indies might be supposed to secure their powerful support for Rammohun’s less distant projects. This explanation, quite apart from its slur on the Rajah’s character, scarcely fits the case. The reform Rammohun is asking for is by no means of the dimensions to justify so tremendous a concession; and even if such a concession were intended, it would hardly be veiled in those indirect and allusive sentences. No one can suppose that the rest of the forecast is disingenuous. Indian independence was not exactly a prospect most agreeable to British susceptibilities; yet it is calmly advanced as a future possibility. The other points are quite of a piece with all we have known of Rammohun Roy. The imputation of insincerity in this one point of religion is surely gratuitous. The whole forecast bears the appearance of being genuine and in good faith. But we must in fairness point out that to anticipate as possible the conversion of India to Christianity is not necessarily to regard that as the most desirable result, or to accept Christianity as one’s own religion. In the struggle which must ensue between Hinduism and the Christian faith Rammohun may have foreseen that the latter would conquer as being the more fit, without himself believing it to be the most fit. It was certainly nearer his pure Theism than the agglomerate of beliefs which went under the Hindu name; and its triumph would certainly be more acceptable to him than its defeat. But he still may have looked beyond the victory of Christianity and hoped for the subsequent ascendency of his own Theistic faith. Nevertheless, however we may explain his forecast, the fact remains that the Founder of the Brahmo Samaj did anticipate the eventual Christianization of India. This is a fact the significance of which ought to be at no time overlooked either by Brahmos or by Christians³¹. Its importance is vastly increased when we remember that this is the last publication of Rammohun Roy. His carrer as author closes here; and closes with this truly colossal outlook. The document may not unfitly be held to embody the Last Will and Testament of Rammohun Roy to the People of India. His final literary deliverance holds up to them the fivefold prospect of India speaking English, India Christian, India socially Anglicized, India possibly independent, India the Enlightener of Asia Among all the permutations and combinations of the Eastern and the English-speaking worlds, may these large hopes of the first Brahman who visited the English capital be reverently remembered! Within a few months of penning this high tribute to the worth of English civilization, we find Rammohun Roy resident in the metropolis of our traditional rival in the East³². Of his stay in Paris we have very scanty information. Between the letter cited above and dated Bedford Square, July 31st, and a letter of Miss Aikin written in October (1832), in which she speaks of Rammohun Roy being then in Paris, we have no account of his movements. We do not know when he went or when he returned. In an Appendix to M. Garcin de Tassy’s Rudimens de la Langue Hindoustani, published in 1833, there are twenty-one original Hindustani letters from various authors, one of whom is Rammohun Roy. Whether this was a fruit of his Parisian visit we have no knowledge.³³ The next that we do know of him is given in a letter of his written after his return to England and dated January 31st, 1833. It is addressed to Mr. Woodford and reads in full: My dear Sir,—I had on the 27th the pleasure of receiving your obliging communication, and beg to offer you and Mrs. W. my best thanks for this mark of attention towards me. I rejoice to observe that the translation of the Veds, &c., which I presented to Mrs. W. before my departure for the Continent of Europe, has proved interesting to her and yourself. I am now confirmed in the opinion that her good sense and her rational devotion to religion will not induce her to reject any reasonable sentiments on the ground that they are not found in this book, or in that volume.

I was detained in France too late to proceed to Italy last year; besides, without a knowledge of French, I found myself totally unable to carry on communication with foreigners, with any degree of facility. Hence I thought I would not avail myself of my travels through Italy and Austria to my own satisfaction. I have been studying French with a French gentleman, who accompanied me to London, and is now living with me.

I shall be most happy to receive your nephew, Mr. Kinglake, as I doubt not his company and conversation, as your relative and a firm friend of Liberal principles will be a source of delight to me. I thank you for the mention you made of Sir Henry Strachey. His talents, acquirements and manners, have rendered his name valuable to those who know him and can appreciate his merits. To the best of my belief and recollection, I declare that I do not know a native of Persia or India who could repeat Persian with greater accuracy than this British born gentleman.

RAMMOHUN ROY It appears that he broke his return journey at Dover, for in a letter from 48 Bedford Square of February 7, 1833, he writes to Miss Kiddell, of Bristol: I intended to pay you both [you and Miss Castle] a visit while residing in Dover, but was informed that it was necessary to pass London on my way to Bristol. My health is, thank God, throughly re-established. He adds that he hopes to visit Bristol within a month’s time, and begs them to “present my best respect to Dr. Carpenter, who truly stands very high in my estimation.” The public ends which brought Rammohun to England were being one by one attained. For two years after his arrival he had been prosecuting his mission from the King of Delhi, and bringing the claims of his royal master before influential personages. Mr. Arnot in the Asiatic Journal Vol. XII, New Series, (September to December, 1833), Part I, p. 208, thus states the result: A short time before his death he had brought his negotiations with the British Government on behalf of the King of Delhi to a successful close by a compromise with the Ministers of the Crown, which will add £30,000 a year to the stipend of the Mogul, and of course make a proportionate reduction in the Indian revenue. The deceased ambassador had a contingent interest in this large addition to the ample allowance of the Mogul pageant, and his heirs, it is said, will gain from it a perpetual income of £3,000 or £4,000 a year. A denial of this version of the facts appeared, evidently from an official source, in the Journal for January, 1834.³⁴ The writer, “A.B.,” did, however, allow that “Rammohun Roy delivered into the Court” of the Directors “and partially circulated a statement regarding the claims of the King”; and that he “also framed a letter in English and Persian from the King of Delhi to his late Majesty George the Fourth, corresponding in substance with the former”; but “no answer was returned to either of these representations, and no negotiation on the subject of them carried on with Rammohun Roy.” The Court of Directors had indeed granted an augmentation of the King of Delhi’s income, but solely on the representation of the Governor-General in Council, and would have made the addition although Rammohun Roy had never set foot in England. The writer concludes by regretting that any portion of the Directors’ bounty to their royal beneficiary should have been diverted to Rammohun or his heirs. From these admissions the non-official reader will probably conclude that Rammohun’s mission, however ignored officially, had really succeeded.³⁵ An impecunious monarch, is not likely to bestow a pension of three to four thousand pounds a year except in return for solid service rendered.³⁶ During this his last summer Rammohun had the satisfaction of witnessing the final blow administered to the cause of Suttee. The Appeal against the abolition of that inhuman rite was brought before the imperial authorities at home and was by them decisively rejected. Rammohun was present when the decision was announced on July 11, 1833.³⁷ Meantime the deliberations connected with the renewal of the East India Company’s Charter were proceeding towards legislation. The Report of the Special Committee had been completed and presented to Parliament in August, 1832. It was before the Court of Directors in the months of March and April, 1833, and its recommendations agreed to. It was then drafted as a Bill and presented in the House of Commons in June. During these momentous negotiations Rammohun was doubtless very busy. In a letter to Miss Kiddell, of date May 14th, 1833, he again speaks of his intention to visit Bristol. But (he adds) important matters passing here daily have detained me and may perhaps detain me longer than I expect. I however lose no time in informing you that the influenza has already lost its influence in London, a circumstance which justifies my entertaining a hope of seeing you and your friends in the metropolis within a short time,³⁸ perhaps by the 25th instant.

P.S.—I sincerely hope that you all have escaped the complaint. So the influenza and the puns its name suggests were a malady common in the year of the first Reformed Parliament. On June 22 he writes to Miss Castle, who with Miss Kiddell had charge of the education of his adopted son, I hope you will excuse my boldness when I take upon myself to remind you of your promise to read the publication of a certain learned Brahmin which I have brought to your notice. As we have seen, Rammohun was always eager to introduce Hindu books to the knowledge of English people, and this desire was naturally greater in regard to his son’s teachers. About the same time, he wrote Miss Kiddell, begging her acceptance of a volume containing a series of sermons preached by Dr. Channing, which he added, “I prize very highly.” The following letter to Miss Kiddell gives another glimpse of the Rajah’s varied character: 48, Bedford Square, July 9th, 1833.

Dear Madam,—I had yesterday the pleasure of receiving your letter of the 6th and rejoice to learn that you find my son peaceable and well-behaved. I however entreat you will not stand on ceremony with him. Be pleased to correct him whenever he deserves correction. My observation on, and confidence in, your excellent mode of educating young persons, have fully encouraged me to leave my youngster under your sole guidance. I at the some time cannot help feeling uneasy now and then at the chance of his proving disrespectful or troublesome to you or to Miss Castle.

Miss Daniel is not going to Bristol to-day. She will probably leave us on Friday next, when I intend to send a parcel of books, &c., in her charge. I hope I shall be able to have the pleasure of visiting you at your country residence next week, and not before, a circumstance which I fear will prevent us from joining the meeting in your neighbourhood. Dr. Carpenter (I think) left London on Saturday last. I doubt not you will take my youngster every Sunday to hear that pious and true minister of the Gospel.

I will write again by Friday next. In the meantime I remain, dear Madam.

Yours very sincerely, Rammohun Roy Private convenience was, however, still further interfered with by the slow progress of public business, as is shown by this letter to Miss Ann Kiddell: 48 Bedford Square, July 19th, 1833

Dear Madam,—I know not how to express the eager desire I feel to proceed to Bristol to experience your further marks of attention and kindness, and Miss Castle’s civil reception and polite conversation. But the sense of my duty to the natives of India has hitherto prevented me from fixing a day for my journey to that town, and has thus overpowered my feeling and inclination. It is generally believed that the main points respecting India will be settled by Wednesday next, and I therefore entertain a strong hope of visiting you by Friday next. I shall not fail to write to you on Wednesday or perhaps on Tuesday next. I feel gratified at the idea that you find my youngster worthy of your company. Nevertheless I entreat you will exercise your authority over him, that he may benefit himself by your instructions. If you find him refractory, pray send him back to London. If not, you may allow him to stay there till I supply his place.

With my best wishes for your uninterrupted health and happiness.

I remain, dear Madam, Yours very sincerely, Rammohun Roy

P.S.—All the active members of the East India Company having been incessantly occupied by the Charter question, I have not yet brought the subject relative to your young nephew to the notice of any of them.

R. R. The following letter to Miss Castle is on the same sheet: Friday, dispatched on Saturday.

Ma chere Demoiselle,—Many thanks for your obliging and polite communication, which by mistake, bears no date. I am glad to observe that you are pleased with your late journey, and with your visit to Windsor. The account which Miss Kiddell and yourself have given of my son, gratifies me very much. Miss Hare received a letter from him this morning which she read to me, expressing his utmost joy and satisfaction with his present situation. I beg you will accept my best thanks for your kind treatment of him. Instead of thanking me for the little tract I had the pleasure to send you last week, I wish you had said only that you would pay attention to it.

You will perceive from my letter to Miss Kiddell that I am to be detained here a week longer at the sacrifice of my feelings. I however cannot help reflecting that to entertain a hope of enjoying the society of friends (though for a short time, say one month) is more pleasant than bringing it to a termination by the completion of it. Adieu for the present,

I remain, Yours very sincerely and obliged, Rammohun Roy Impatience of protracted Parlimentary delay appears again in the following to Miss Ann Kiddell: 48, Bedford Square, July 24th, 1833.

Dear Madam,—From my anxiety to proceed to Bristol, heavy duties appeared to me light, and difficult tasks had seemed easily manageable. The consequence was that I met with disappointments from time to time, which I felt severely. To-day is the third reading of the Indian Bill in the House of Commons, after long vexatious debates in the Committe, impeding its progress under different pretensions. After the Bill has passed the Lower House, I will lose no time in ascertaining how it will stand in the Upper Branch, and will immediately leave London without waiting for the final result. I will proceed direct to Bristol next week, and on my way to [from ?] London I will endeavour to visit my acquaintances at Bath and its vicinity. I deeply regret that I should have been prevented from fulfilling my intention this week, by circumstances over which I had no control.

I feel very much obliged by your kind suggestions contained in my son’s letter. You may depend on my adhering to them. I intend to leave this place a little before ten a.m., that I may arrive there on the morning of the following day. Before I leave London I hope to be able to procure the situation for your young relative. Pray present my kindest regards to Miss Castle, and believe me, dear Madam,

Yours very sincerely, Rammohun Roy Three days after this letter (July 27th) we find Rammohun writing to Miss Mary Carpenter “happy to observe from the communications of his son and his friends at Bristol that Dr. Carpenter is perfectly well, and has been discharging his duty as a faithful minister of Christ with his usual zeal and piety.” The delay attending his Bristol visit is further explained in another note to Miss Kiddell, dated 48 Bedford Square, August 16th, 1833: Dear Madam,—I have now the pleasure of informing you that I feel relieved, and will proceed to Stapleton Grove on Thursday next. I beg you will excuse this short letter as I am incessantly engaged in making preparations, particularly in writing letters to India and in different parts of this country. Pray give my love to my son and my kind regards to Miss Castle and believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,

Rammohun Roy.

P.S.—Miss Hare presents her compliments to yourself and Miss Castle.—R. R. At last the great measure which legalized the twenty odd years’ transition of Indian government from a trading company to an Empire was finally enacted. The East India Bill received the Royal Assent on August 20. The Charter then and thus renewed, made the Company less than ever a commercial agency and more more than ever a political. It was virtually the last Charter. A precarious renewal in 1853 ended in the government of India being taken over by the Queen in 1858. But Rammohun was not pleased with the legislative activity of the Reformed Parliament, as may be seen from this letter to Mr. Woodford. 48, Bedford Square, August 22nd, 1833.

My dear Sir,—I was glad to hear from Mr. Carey some time ago that you and Mrs. W. were in good health when he saw you last; and Sir Henry Strachey, whom I had the pleasure of seeing about three weeks ago has confirmed the same information. He is indeed an extraordinary man; and I feel delighted whenever I have an opportunity of conversing with that philosopher. I have been rather poorly for some days past; I am now getting better, and entertain a hope of proceeding to the country in a few days, when I will endeavour to pay you a visit in Taunton. The reformed Parliament has disappointed the people of England; the ministers may perhaps redeem their pledge during next session. The failure of several mercantile houses in Calcutta has produced much distrust both in India and England. The news from Portugal is highly gratifying, though another struggle is expected. I hope you will oblige me by presenting to Mrs. W., with my best respects, the accompanying copy of a translation, giving an account of the system of religion which prevailed in Central India at the time of the invasion of that country by Alexander the Great.

Rammohun Roy A singular pathos attaches to this letter, which is the last we have preserved to us from Rammohun’s pen³⁹. Its wide outlook, personal, political, historical, is characteristic of the man, but his disappointment with the new Parliament is more difficult to explain. The Session had given birth to Lord Ashley’s first Factory Act, and decreed the abolition of West Indian slavery—no small achievements even for a reformed legislative machine. Possibly the terms of the new Charter were not to Rammohun’s mind. Yet perhaps in this connection it would be well to recall what Mr. Arnot said in his obituary sketch in the Asiatic Journal before referred to: Though a decided reformer, he was generally a moderate one. For his own country he did not propose even an Indian legislative council like Mr. Rickards’, and he deemed the English more capable of governing his countrymen well than the natives themselves. A reference of measure of internal policy to a few of the most distinguished individuals in the European and native community, for their suggestions, previous to such measures being carried into law, was the utmost he asked in the present state of the Indian public mind. He not only always contended, at least among Europeans, for the necessity of continuing British rule for at least forty or fifty years to come, for the good of the people themselves; but he stood up firmly against the proposals of his more radical friends, for exchanging the East India Company’s rule for a Colonial form of Government. The reasons he adduced for this position are not wanting in shrewdness. “A Colonial form of Government,” be it remembered, did not then mean colonial self-goverment. Mr. Arnot continued: His argument was, that in all matters connected with the colonies, he had found from long observation that the Minister was absolute, and the majority of the House of Commons subservient, there being no body of persons there who had any adequate motive to thwart the Government in regard to distant dependencies of the British Crown. The change proposed was, therefore, in his estimation, a change from a limited Government, presenting a variety of efficient checks on any abuse of its powers, for an absolute despotism. His suggestions for the reform of Indian Government were thus of no extreme type⁴⁰. Yet mild as they were, they were not embodied in the East India Bill. His elaborate recommendations submitted to the Parliamentary Committee and to the British public had not obtained legislative endorsement. But whatever may have led to his estrangement from the Grey Ministry, which he had at first applauded with enthusiasm, it need not now specially concern us. For Rammohun’s political career was over. The series of brilliant services which mark him out as the pioneer of Indian freedom may be said to have ended when King William gave his assent to the East India Bill. The less than forty days which remained to Rammohun Roy after that event were spent outside of the arena of public questions. About the closing weeks of his life there gathered many shadows. His was a sunset not of flaming sky and gorgeous cloud-wreath, but of struggling beams and weeping mist. Sandford Arnot insisted that “during the last period of his life his manners were much changed and the powers of his mind seemed to be decaying.” This was stoutly denied by his staunch Unitarian friends, and may have been due only to Arnot’s disappointed rapacity. The bluntest statement of the Rajah’s difficulties is given in a private letter from the Sanskrit scholar Horace Hayman Wilson, to Babu Ram Comul Sen, written 21st December, 1833—three months after Rammohun’s death—but published in the Indian Mirror, July 15, 1872.⁴¹ Rammohun had grown very stout, and looked full and flushed when I saw him. It appears also that mental anxiety contributed to aggravate his complaint. He had become embarrassed for money, and was obliged to borrow of his friends here; in doing which he must have been exposed to much annoyance, as people in England would as soon part with their lives as their money. Then Mr. Sandford Arnot, whom he had employed as his secretary, importuned him for the payment of large sums which he called arrears of salary, and threatened Rammohun, if not paid, to do what he has done since his death—claim as his own writing all that Rammohun published in England. In short Rammohun had got amongst a low, needy, unprincipled set of people, and found out his mistake, I suspect, when too late, which preyed upon his spirits and injured his health. As this letter was written after conversation with Mr. Hare’s brother, it may be taken for trustworthy testimony. Pecuniary embarrassment was a misfortune from which Rammohun had never suffered before. His sons in India, according to the letter of Babu Nagendranath Chatterjee of January 2, 1883, reporting the testimony of Babu Nanda Kishore Bose, “neglected to send him money latterly,”—a neglect which seems the less excusable in the light of the large pension he had secured for the family from the King of Delhi. His wealth, actual or prospective, being in India, he could not realize it in England Babu N. Bose declares (in letter cited above) that owing to the lack of remittances from India, Rammohun, who had previously “refrained from dining with Englishmen,” “was compelled from sheer necessity to dine with the Carpenters.” The revolt of his parasites, however, only throws into clearer contrast the firm loyalty of his Unitarian friends. He had been living for some time now at the house of Mr. Hare, and the daughter of Mr. David Hare—his educational ally in Calcutta—was his devoted attendant to the end⁴². The looked-for journey to Bristol was taken at last. Early in September the Rajah arrived at Stapleton Grove on the outskirts of that city, the hospitable home of Miss Kiddel and Miss Castle where his adopted son was being educated. With Rammohun came his two Hindu servants Ramhari Das and Ramratan Mukerjee, neither of whom proved models of domestic loyalty,—and the ever faithful Miss Hare. Dr. Carpenter was in Bristol at the time, and Mr. Estlin was Rammohun’s medical adviser and friend. Doubtless the Rajah, however worried by the claims of the extortionate Arnot, and however anxious about his future, would feel Stapleton Grove to be something like a haven of rest. He was among cultured religious people whose fidelity was beyond question. He was entertained and accompanied by admiring and sympathetic women. And his adopted boy was with him. It is pleasant to reflect on this little lull, of less than a fortnight, between a career full of conflict and what Browning calls “the last fight and the best.” One menace to the tranquility of his stay at the Grove was perhaps offered by the religious eagerness of the hospitable circle in which he moved. On the two Sundays he was able to do so, he worshipped with his friends at Lewin’s Mead Chapel; and they showed no slight desire to secure from him a confession of Christian faith. Mr Estlin recorded in his diary for September 9 that Rammohun had in his hearing declared “he denied the Divinity of Christ” but “distinctly asserted his belief in the Divine mission of Christ.”⁴³ Rev. John Foster⁴⁴ bore witness to the fact that on the 11th of September the Rajah “avowed unequivocally his belief in the resurrection of Christ and in the Christian miracles generally. At the same time he said that the internal evidence of Christianity had been the the most decisive of his conviction.” Mr. Estlin’s diary for the 11th attests that the Rajah gave an account of the process which he went through in arriving at his present religious conclusions: “his belief in the resurrection of Christ, as the foundation of his faith in the general resurrection, he firmly declared.” The Rev. William Jay of Bath, confesses to receiving a similar impression. He preached on June 17th, 1832, in Rowland Hill’s chapel, a sermon on “The Riches of His Goodness,” and among his hearers were the Lord Mayor of London and the Rajah. Mr. Jay says in his advertisement dated 1843⁴⁵. “When the service was over the Rajah came into the chapel house and pressed for leave, at his own expense, to print the sermon for distribution among his friends.” . . “The author, with regard to this very extraordinary man, cannot help remarking that not only from the circumstance of his espousing this sermon (which, though not highly doctrinal, has allusions and intimations which would not accord with some theology), but from subsequent intercourse, as also from the testimony of others, he is persuaded that though at his first embracing Christianity he was Unitarian in his views, he was after he came to this country a sincere and earnest enquirer after evangelical truth, and would have professed his adoption of it had he not been prematurely removed by death.”⁴⁶ In this connection we may mention another witness. The Rev. Richard Warner, Rector of Great Challfield, Wilts., published in 1832 a sermon on “Charity, the Greatest of the Christian Graces,” with a Dedication to Rammohun Roy⁴⁷, in which the Rajah is extolled “for the labours in which he exercises himself for the diffusion of the Light of Christianity and the promotion of Evangelical Love among an hundred millions of his countrymen.” The worthy Rector proceeds: Rajah, never shall I forget the long and profoundly interesting conversation which passed between us a few days ago. . . . Nor will the noble declaration fade from my recollection, that you were not only ready to sacrifice station, property and even life itself to the advancement of a religion which (in its genuine purity and simplicity) proved its descent from the God of Love, . . . but that you should consider the abstaining from such a course as the non-performance of one of the Highest Duties imposed upon rational, social, and accountable man! . . . May God prosper your benevolent endeavours to spread……the knowledge of Christ and the practice of Christian Charity! This enthusiastic clergyman signs himself “Your friend and brother in Christ.”⁴⁸ The diary of Mr. Estlin, published in Miss Mary Carpenter’s work cited above, furnishes the fullest account of the last days of Rammohun Roy.⁴⁹ On Thursday, the 19th, he found the Rajah ill in fever. From Mr. H. H. Wilson we learn that “it was thought he had the liver complaint, and his medical treatment was for that, not for determination to the head.”⁵⁰ But it was, after all, the overworked brain that was giving out. Mr. Estlin (on the 19th) noted the headache which accompanied the fever, and tha the slept with his eyes much open. He needed a nurse. The medical man suggested that Miss Hare be allowed to attend to him. The sick Hindu objected on score of propriety. Mr. Eastlin reassured him as to British notions on that head, and David Hare’s daughter[^31] was forthwith installed as nurse to her father’s friend and her own. Mr. Estlin on the 22nd remarked on Miss Hare’s weariless watchfulness and great influence with the Rajah: “He is evidently much attached to her, and her regard for him is quite filial,”—a pleasing fact to remember of the lone Hindu’s last days. Next day (the 23rd) “the head appearing the organ most affected, leeches were applied.” But the illness moved on towards its fatal issue. The Rajah seemed to pass much of his waking time in prayer. What special burdens weighed on his mind and pressed out his entreaties, we have no means of knowing. His utterance of the sacred “AUM”—one of the last words he was heard to utter—suggested that at the solitary gate of death as well as in the crowded thoroughfare of life the contemplation of Deity was the chief pre-occupation of his soul⁵¹. Soon he began to lose all power of consciousness and speech, and yet he occasionally recovered sufficiently to express his deep thankfulness to the kind friends about him. On Friday, the 27th September the final crisis came. Mr. Estlin thus describes it— The Rajah became worse every few minutes, his breathing more rattling and impeded, his pulse imperceptible. He moved about his right arm constantly and his left arm a little a few hours before his death. It was a beautiful moonlight night; on one side of the window, as Mr. Hare, Miss Kiddell and I looked out of it, was the calm rural midnight scene; on the other, this extraordinary man dying. I shall never forget the moment. Miss Hare, now hopeless and overcome, could not summon courage to hang over the dying Rajah as she did while soothing or feeding him ere hope had left her, and remained sobbing in the chair near; the young Rajah⁵² was generally holding his hand. . . . At half-past two Mr. Hare came into my room and told me it was all over. His last breath was drawn at 2.25. So passed the soul of the great Hindu. His was a life of transition, from the time when he broke with his boyish faith and his father’s house, all through the stormy years of his manhood; and now the greatest transition of all had come. The restless and valiant seeker after truth had at last arrived and attained. The pathos and poetry of that death-scene will linger long in the wistful imagination of India. The strange and distant western region, the rich rural landscape sleeping under the glamour of an autumn moon, the solitary country house standing out distinct in the silvery mystery of the moonlight, everything wrapped in tranquillity and hushed to perfect stillness, Nature and Night combining to suggest the presence of the Eternal Calm; and within, the spirit of the great emancipator struggling to burst the fetters of mortality, and at last achieving the freedom and peace of the mystery which he had given his life to apprehend,—here is a weirdly-mingled memory for the spiritual descendants of Rammohun, the myriad millions yet to be of an enlightened and enfranchised East. On the day after death the body was subjected to a medical examination by Mr. Estlin, assisted by several friends. The cause of death was found to be “fever producing great prostration of the vital powers, and accompanied by inflammation of the brain.” The fact the brain was inflamed, of which the usual symptoms had not appeared, was ascertained only by this post mortem inspection. Brain fever, brought on by financial and other worry, following on a life of intense mental activity, was thus the natural termination of the Rajah’s career. Mr. Estlin’s diary records of the deceased that “his Brahminical thread was over the left shoulder and under the right, like a skein of common brown thread.” The same evening the body was placed in the shell and leaden coffin under the superintendence of Mr. Estlin, who took care that the “Brahminical thread was never removed.” One of Rammohun’s servants, Ramratan was compelled—“much against his will”—to attend as witness of these facts. The interment of the great Brahman was characteristic of his career.⁵³ In a postscript which is attached to Dr. Lant Carpenter’s funeral Review (London and Bristol, 1833) we have at once the narrative and explanation of Rammohun’s singular obsequies: The knowledge that the Rajah had in various ways manifested solicitude to preserve his caste with a view both to his usefulness and to the security of his property, and the belief that it might be endangered if he were buried among other dead or with Christian rites, operated to prevent the interment of his remains in any of the usual cemeteries. Besides this the Rajah had repeatedly expressed the wish that in case of his dying in England, a small piece of freehold ground might be purchased for his burying place, and a cottage be built on it for the gratuitous residence of some respectable poor person, to take charge of it. Every difficulty, however, was removed by the offer of Miss Castle, in which she had the warm accordance of all her intimate friends, to appropriate to the object a beautifully adapted spot in a shrubbery near her lawn, and under some fine elms. There this revered and beloved person was interred, on the 18th of October,⁵⁴ about 2 p.m. The coffin was borne on men’s shoulders, without a pall, and deposited in the grave, without any ritual and in silence. Everything conspired to give an impressive and affecting solemnity to his obsequies. Those who followed him to the grave and sorrowed there were his son and his two native servants, the members of the families of Stapleton Grove and Bedford Square, the Gurdians of Miss Castle and two of her nearest relatives, Mr. Estlin, Mr. Foster, and Dr. Jerrard, together with several ladies connected with the attendants already enumerated; and as there could be no regular entry of the interment in any official registers, those who witnessed it have signed several copies of a record drawn up for the purpose, in case such a document should be needed for any legal purposes.⁵⁵ So he was buried. Alone in his death as in his life, in alien soil, but carefully protected to the last from violation of his native customs. The silence that fell at the grave which closed so active and vocal a life is strangely suggestive. Rammohun’s last word remains unspoken. The grave in which he was laid was not, however, to be the final resting place. Ten years later a new home was found for his earthly remains in the cemetery of Arno’s Vale near Bristol. There the Rajah’s great friend and comrade, Dwarakanath Tagore, who had come over from India on pious pilgrimage to the place where the Master died, erected a tomb of stone. It was in 1872—nearly forty years after Rammohun had passed out of the region of sensuous existence—that this inscription was added: BENEATH THIS STONE REST THE REMAINS OF RAJA RAMMOHUN ROY BAHADOOR. A CONSCIENTIOUS AND STEADFAST BELIEVER IN THE UNITY OF THE GODHEAD; HE CONSECRATED HIS LIFE WITH ENTIRE DEVOTION TO THE WORSHIP OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT ALONE. TO GREAT NATURAL TALENTS HE UNITED A THOROUGH MASTERY OF MANY LANGUAGES, AND EARLY DISTINGUISHED HIMSELF AS ONE OF THE GREATEST SCHOLARS OF HIS DAY. HIS UNWEARIED LABOURS TO PROMOTE THE SOCIAL, MORAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, HIS EARNEST ENDEAVOURS TO SUPPRESS IDOLATRY AND THE RITE OF SUTTEE, AND HIS CONSTANT ZEALOUS ADVOCACY OF WHATEVER TENDED TO ADVANCE THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE WELFARE OF MAN, LIVE IN THE GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF HIS COUNTRYMEN. THIS TABLET RECORDS THE SORROW AND PRIDE WITH WHICH HIS MEMORY IS CHERISHED BY HIS DESCENDANTS. HE WAS BORN IN RADHANAGORE, IN BENGAL, IN 1774,⁵⁶ AND DIED AT BRISTOL, SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1833. Another monument, on less durable material, belongs to Bristol. In the vestibule of the Museum hangs a full length portrait of Rammohun, which was painted by Mr. H. P. Briggs, R.A.⁵⁷ As was to be expected, the demise of the Hindu Theist led to the delivery of many eloquent and impressive funeral discourses. Among these may be mentioned Dr. Lant Carpenter’s at Bristol, and Rev. W. J. Fox’s at Finsbury Chapel, London, both of which contain much valuable biographic material.⁵⁸ They display an easily explicable desire to identify the late Brahman with Christianity, but bear also striking witness to the power the Rajah had shown of inspiring warm personal affection. It is the ardent and admiring friend, not the spiritual undertaker, which appears in the preacher. That Rammohun should have rivetted to himself Hindu souls, of the same clime and blood as he was, and groping as he had groped after the light behind the cloud of ancient Indian religion, was not to be wondered at so much as the devoted friendships which he created among foreigners, of alien ways of thinking and believing, whom he had known only for a comparatively short period. It is no small testimony to his character that even a slight acquaintance with him was enough to stir stolid and phlegmatic Englishmen to something very nearly a passion of love for him. There must have been much love in the man to evoke such devotion. A jarring note in the general chorus of eulogy was struck by the biographic writings of Mr. Sandford Arnot, who had been Secretary to the Rajah from his arrival in England until a few months prior to his death. This man contributed a sketch of his deceased master to the November number of the Asiatic Journal (1833), in which besides speaking somewhat harshly of the change that came over the mind and manners of the Rajah in the last months of his life, he suggested that the Rajah’s literary work in English owed more than was generally supposed to his secretary’s assistance. Dr. Lant Carpenter replied with some severity to this charge, in his published memorials of the great Hindu, as did also Mr. John Hare in the Times and other public prints. Arnot made rejoinder in the January number of the Asiatic Journal, specifying his services to the Rajah and remarking, “I did no more than I suppose every other secretary does, that is, ascertains from his principal what he wishes to say or prove on any given subject, receives a rough outline, and works it out in his own way, making as many points and giving as much force of diction as he can.”⁵⁹ We may readily admit that Rammohun made free use of secretarial help, without impairing to any extent worth considering the genuineness of his authorship, or the reality of his singular command of the English language. Sub-editors and secretaries may render most valuable aid, but their minor labours may never be mistaken for the work of the Chief. If he be a foreigner, it is their duty to preserve his English from lapses into foreign idiom and to suggest idiomatic utterances in their native tongue in place of his more colourless expressions. But editing is not composing. This Arnot as a journalist very well knew, and his effort to magnify his secretarial functions at the expense of his patron’s literary reputation ought never to have been made. The pecuniary claims with which it was preceded and accompanied betray the extortionate purpose of the whole miserable business. A controversy of a nobler kind arose concerning the religious position which the Rajah finally adopted. There was a very natural desire on the part of his Christian friends to claim him as in the end a decided Christian. Reverends W. Jay and Richard Warner did, we have seen, declare him a signal convert to Evangelical religion. In a conversation on the Lord’s Prayer with the father of Mr. G. N. Aitchison (as reported in a letter from the latter to Prof. Max Muller, of date September 27, 1883) Rammohun is stated to have declared his conviction that “that prayer was never made by man: its author could have been nothing less than Divine”. Rev. John Foster held him to have made virtual confession, a few days before he died, of the Divine authority of Christ. Mr. Estlin, as already recorded, reported more precisely Rammohun’s disbelief in the Divinity, but acceptance of the Divine mission of Jesus. Both these friends of his assert the Rajah’s unequivocal conviction of the Resurrection of Jesus. We cannot wonder at Unitarian Christians regarding him as an illustrious champion of their views. But we may not accept offhand the testimony of these eager witnesses. Their differing estimates of his faith had been anticipated by him. Babu N. Bose used to tell how “Rammohun Roy before leaving for England, told him that the followers of every prevailing religion would reckon him, after his death, as one of their co-religionists. The Mohammedans would call him a Mohammedan, the Hindus would call him a Vedantic Hindu, the Christians a Unitarian Christian.”⁶⁰ But Babu N. Bose added, “he really belonged to no sect. His religion was Universal Theism.” As he believed this principle to be the quintessence of every religion, he was able to approach the advocates of the most different creeds with a sympathy and an emphasis on points of agreement which they could only interpret as complete adhesion. The impression thus made was deepened by his extreme Oriental courtesy which seemed to not unfriendly Westerns to pass into over-great complaisance. Mr. James Sutherland, who was warmly attached to the Rajah, could write (in the India Gazette, February 18, 1834)⁶¹: On questions of religious faith Rammohun Roy was in general too pliant, perhaps from his excessive fear of giving offence, or wounding the feelings of anybody, which accounts for the controversy which has arisen about his religious opinions. In fact, no matter what the creed of the parties with whom he conversed on such a subject, he was sure to impress them with an idea, either that he was of their peculiar faith, or that they had converted him to it. A lady once observed to me that she was rejoiced to find that he was a sincere Trinitarian, and that he had merely gone to Unitarian places of worship from curiosity, as he had attended Quakers’ meetings, the Jewish Synagogue, etc. Full weight must be given to these considerations. But they are not sufficient to account for the impression that the mind of the Rajah was in his later days moving towards more positive religious convictions. Sandford Arnot, whose testimony is not without value after allowance has been made for his one distorting motive, roundly asserts that “in regard to religious belief” he saw “no reason to think that the slightest change took place in the Rajah’s mind for the last forty or fifty years, that is, since the period when about sixteen years of age he began to doubt Hinduism.” But this statement is no sooner made than Arnot—apparently quite unconsciously—goes on to show how the Rajah’s mind was actually changing. Arnot’s scornful disbelief in Rammohun’s reputed movement towards Christianity makes the following remarks of his all the more striking evidence: As he advanced in age, he became more strongly impressed with the importance of religion to the welfare of society, and the pernicious effects of scepticism. In his younger years, his mind had been deeply struck with the evils of believing too much, and against that he directed all his energies; but in his later days he began to feel that there was as much, if not greater, danger in the tendency to believe too little. Friends and believers in the New India growing up under British rule will warmly sympathise with the observations which next follow: He often deplored the existence of a party which had sprung up in Calcutta, composed principally of imprudent young men, some of them possessing talent, who had avowed themselves sceptics in the widest sense of the term. He described it as partly composed of East Indians, partly of the Hindu youth, who, from education had learnt to reject their own faith without substituting any other. These he thought more debased than the most bigoted Hindu, and their principles the bane of all morality. His sense of this, the gravest danger of the Indian people, was only deepened by his experiences in the West: His strong aversion to infidelity was by no means diminished during his visit to England and France; on the contrary the more he mingled with society in Europe the more strongly he became persuaded that religious belief is the only sure groundwork of virtue. “If I were to settle with my family in Europe,” he used to say, “I would never introduce them to any but religious persons, and from amongst them only would I select my friends; amongst them I find such kindness and friendship that I feel as if surrounded by my own kindred.” Next comes still more impressive evidence—from such a witness—as to the Rajah’s changed mental attitude: He evidently now began to suspect that the Unitarian form of Christianity was too much rationalized (or sophisticated, perhaps, I may say) to be suitable to human nature. He remarked in the Unitarians a want of that fervour of zeal and devotion found among other sects, and felt doubts whether a system appealing to reason only was calculated to produce a permanent influence on mankind. Revulsion from the rationalism of Unitarians is a very decided portent of religious evolution. A kindred reaction affected him in regard to the philosophy then prevalent in England. Arnot continues: He perceived the same defect in the Utilitarian philosophy, and ridiculed the notion that man, a being governed by three powers,—reason, imagination and the passions,—could be directed by those who addressed themselves only or chiefly to the first of these powers, overlooking the importance of the two other elements of human nature, which must continue to exert an everlasting influence. There is much to confirm, there is nothing to impugn, these statements of Arnot.⁶² They bear every mark of being thoroughly veracious and are made still less open to question by Arnot’s own contemptuous disbelief in Rammohun’s supposed Christianity. They present additional indications of a kind which have been numerous throughout Rammohun’s whole career, and which have grown more numerous towards its close. We have seen him lean increasingly towards fellowship with Anglicans, claiming an Anglican clergyman as his “parish priest.” We have observed his remarkable anticipation that India would eventually become Christian.⁶³ We may discount, but cannot wholly disallow, the witness of John Foster and J. B. Estlin concerning Rammohun’s faith in the Resurrection. To what do these things point? To Rammohun having gradually glided into Unitarian or even Evangelical Christianity? By no means. Rammohun was no Evangelical Christian, like Mr. Kenney or Mr. Jay. He was no Christian even of the type of Dr. Carpenter.⁶⁴ The conscious and complete surrender of the will to the authority of Jesus which is involved in conversion to either of these forms of Christian life is an experience through which according to the evidence before us, Rammohun never passed. With the awful demand, “If any man would come after Me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me,” we have no adequate ground for supposing that Rammohun complied. But a dispassionate view of the marvellous history of the man discredits the fancy that his convictions showed no change throughout his career of reform, even more utterly than it discredits the idea that he was a Christian. It points conclusively to the fact that Rammohun’s awakened life was one of continuous transition. From the time when he left his father’s house in revolt against conventional Hinduism to the last days in Stapleton Grove, his mind was moving on. It was driven forward by the imperious personal problem: Given an intensely religious nature, with profound emotions, large imagination and fine ethical sense, how to find expression for the same consonantly with the claims of a keen and comprehensive intellect. The solution involved in the first instance a resolute break with the traditional polytheism. The process was to begin with chiefly negative. The youthful Reformer was for showing up the mistakes of all the religions.⁶⁵ To gain the freedom demanded by his religious impulses, he was glad to welcome the destructive aid of rationalism. But rationalism was to him ever a means, never an end. His end was persistently religious, and therefore eventually positive. So he soon passed from an attitude towards all religions that was critical if not hostile, to an attitude that was sympathetic. He would extract the rational elements out of Hinduism and appropriate the ethical contents of Christianity. He tried to find a common denominator for Hindu and Christian Unitarianism.⁶⁶ The device might please his intellect but European Unitarianism left little room for the development of his warm-blooded Oriental passion for religion. The founding of the Brahmo Samaj showed an effort not merely to satisfy the large ambitions of a devout and comprehensive intellect, but to meet the more specifically religious needs of a genuine fellowship and of a social “morality touched with emotion”. Intellectualism was still in the ascendent, but the driving power was religion. With his arrival in England the process of evolution was naturally vastly accelerated. His knowledge of religious and philosophic systems was fertilized by close contact with the life out of which they grew or with which they were supposed to correspond. In especial, he came to know Christianity, not through its books or through isolated persons or groups as in India, but in its collective life and in its domestic civilization. He came to adopt a more positive and concrete and perhaps a less merely speculative view of religion. For the negative and disintegrating influence of the analytic intellect he developed an increasing horror. He denounced its effects in the scepticism of Calcutta and still more of Paris.⁶⁷ He felt the barrenness and impotence of the Unitarian philosophy. Man was much more than an intellectual machine. He had an imagination and a heart, and unless these were stirred creed or calculus or code were of slight avail. The need of religion, as distinguished from plausible speculations, became ever more paramount in Rammohun’s eyes. Religion kindled imagination, roused passion, set the conscience in motion, as well as appeased the reason. But judged by these standards, Unitarian Christianity with which he had once hoped to effect much, was seriously lacking. It was too exclusively intellectual. In the other Christian sects there might be less of reason and reasoning, but there was manifestly more of religion. Rammohun was coming to recognise more and more that religion was a whole-human thing: it was a force: it was a vital soul-kindling soul-begetting power: it was infinitely more than any causal theory of the Universe: it was never to be confounded with an arid rationalism or a bloodless ethicism. The primal religious impulse of Rammohun’s nature was at last disentangling itself from the intellectualism under which it had long been working, at first joyously, but latterly with painful sense of oppression. It will not do, therefore, to dub Rammohun Roy, “Universal Theist” with Babu N. Bose, and pass on as though that formula could express his ever changing career. At the outset his Theism was intellectually not far from the Deism of last century, in the end it was religiously not far from the spirit of Christianity. In the earlier stages of his emancipation, his faith seemed to differ little from the fictitious “natural religion” of the eighteenth century philosophers save for a strong infusion of Oriental passion. Towards the close, we see him turning with weary disgust from the fanciful abstractions of the speculative intellect to the dynamic facts of human nature and of human history. How much further he would have moved in the direction of positive religion if his life had been prolonged for any considerable period, it is idle to conjecture. The theological transition which lasted all his life was at his death left incomplete. We may not guess at its completion. It is enough for us to observe its direction. These conclusions as to the inner movement of Rammohun’s mind suggest his place in history. The life is the life work. His own career of constant but incomplete transition constituted him the leader and the instrument of a kindred transition among his fellow-countrymen. The path he trod they seem destined to follow; more or less rapidly as opportunity and inducement vary, but perhaps none the less surely because the goal towards which he was moving was never by him visibly attained. Rammohun stands in history as the living bridge over which India marches from her unmeasured past to her incalculable future. He was the arch which spanned the gulf that yawned between ancient caste and modern humanity, between superstition and science, between despotism and democracy, between immobile custom and a conservative progress, between a bewildering polytheism and a pure, if vague, Theism. He was the mediator of his people, harmonizing in his own person often by means of his own solitary sufferings, the conflicting tendencies of immemorial tradition and of inevitable enlightenment. The impact of Christian civilization, with its wide freedom and strong tolerance, upon the unreconciled juxtaposition of Islam and Hinduism, introduced into the life of the people of India a painful crisis.⁶⁸ There were new and fierce revulsions, there were attractions, powerful though hidden: there was an intense mental effervescence: there was the sudden generation of strange and composite ideas: there was, in short, a sort of silent explosion within the spiritual frame, which sent thrills of agony through every shattered and lacerated fragment. But the misery caused by the destructive consequences, although more obvious at first, cannot conceal the sympathetic and constructive forces at work. Of the result of this impact we may regard Rammohun as the personal type. He embodies the new spirit which arises from the compulsory mixture of races and faiths and civilizations,—he embodies its freedom of inquiry, its thirst for science, its large humane sympathy, its pure and sifted ethics, along with its reverent but not uncritical regard for the past, and prudent even timid disinclination towards revolt⁶⁹. But in the life of Rammohun we see what we hope yet to have shown us in the progress of India, that the secret of the whole movement is religious. Amid all his wanderings Rammohun was saved by his faith. From the perfervid piety of his Pagan boyhood to the strong leanings which, in his latest years, he envinced towards Christianity he was led by his faith,—the purpose and passion of belief which he inherited from all the ages of India’s history. He was a genuine outgrowth of the old Hindu stock; in a soil watered by new influences, and in an atmosphere charged with unwonted forcing power, but still a true scion of the old stock. The Rajah was no merely occidentalized Oriental, no Hindu polished into the doubtful semblance of a European. Just as little was he, if we may use the term without offence, a spiritual Eurasian. If we follow the right line of his development we shall find that he leads the way from the Orientalism of the past, not to, but through Western culture, towards a civilization which is neither Western nor Eastern, but something vastly larger and nobler than both. He preserves continuity throughout, by virtue of his religion, which again supplied the motive force of his progressive movement. The power that connected and restrained, as well as widened and impelled, was religion. Rammohun thus presents a most instructive and inspiring study for the New India of which he is the type and pioneer. He offers to the new democracy of the West a scarcely less valuable index of what our greatest Eastern dependency may yet become under the Imperial sway of the British commonalty. There can be little doubt that, whatever future the destinies may have in store for India, that future will be largely shaped by the life and work of Rammohun Roy. And not the future of India alone. We stand on the eve of an unprecedented intermingling of East and West. The European and the Asiatic streams of human development, which have often tinged each other before, are now approaching a confluence which bids fair to form the one ocean-river of the collective progress of mankind. In the presence of that greater Eastern Question,—with its infinite ramifications, industrial, political, moral and religious,—the international problems of the passing hour, even the gravest of them, seem dwarfed into parochial pettiness. The nearing dawn of these unmeasured possibilities only throws into clearer prominence the figure of the man whose life-story we have told. He was, if not the prophetic type, at least the precursive hint, of the change that is to come.⁷⁰

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

I

Mr. Amal Home has drawn our attention to the comment of “one of the judges of the Calcutta High Court” that this volume “does not contain all that the Raja communicated to the Board.” The same authority is said to have informed Mr. Home that Rammohun’s “entire evidence is to be found, in the Appendix to the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the affairs of the East India Company, published in 1831-33” (Rammohun Roy: The Man and His Work, Rammohun Centenary Publicity Booklet, No. 1, Calcutta, June 1933, compiled and edited by Amal Home, incorporated in The Father of Modern India, Rammohun Centenary Commemoration Volume, Part II p. 64). We have therefore followed Miss Mary Carpenter and Mr. Home in giving the following detailed references to the said Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons indicating specifically the places in it where the “Communications” and the Evidence of Rammohun are to be found:

(1) 1831, Vol. V, pp. 716-23; copy of communication between Rammohun Roy and the Board of Control relative to the Revenue and Judicial System of India; 54 questions proposed to Rammohun Roy, and his answers, dated 19th August 1831. Subjects: Revenue System of India, Tenure of Land, Rate of Rent, Title to Land, Improvement of the State of the Cultivators and Inhabitants at large.

(2) Ibid, pp. 723-26; Appendix A: Paper on the Revenue System of India, by Rammohun Roy, dated London. August 19th, 1831.

(3) Ibid, pp. 726-39; 78 questions and answers, dated, London, September, 19th, 1831.

(4) Ibid, pp. 739-41: 13 additional queries respecting the condition of India and answers, dated, London, September 28th, 1831.

(5) Volume VIII, 1831-32, Section V, pp. 341-43: Remarks by Rammohun Roy are given on the settlement of Europeans in India, dated 14th July, 1832.

(6) Appendix to the Report of 1833, p. 366: The Evidence of Rammohun Roy, respecting the conditions of the ryots in India.

A side note for reference, p. 366, opposite to this mention of Rammohun Roy, has these words, “Evidence before Committee of 1831, Evidence before this Committee, A to G, 35, p. 5 min.”, which seems to show that the Rajah had been examined before a Committee of the House of Commons. (See Mary Carpenter’s Last Days in England of Rajah Rammohun Roy, Calcutta Edition, 1915, pp. 112-19; Cf. also The Father of Modern India Rammohun Centenary Commemoration Volume Part II p. 64).

Inquisitive readers would do well to compare the contents of Rammohun’s published volume with the passages from the Select Committee Report, referred to, above.

Dr. Lant Carpenter’s observations on Rammohun’s “Communications” to the Board of Control may be quoted here: “His labours for his country had……a much wider scope. He took an interest in whatever contributed or appeared to him likely to contribute to its welfare; and his communications to our Legislature show with what closeness of observation, soundness of judgment and comprehensiveness of views he had considered the various circumstances which interfered with its improvement or which on the other hand tended to promote it. They show him to be at once the philosopher and the patriot. They are full of practical wisdom; and there is reason to believe that they were highly valued by our Government, and that they aided in the formation of the new system by which the well-being of our vast dependencies in India must be so greatly affected for good or for ill; …” (Review of the Labours Opinions and Character of Rajah Rammohun Roy London and Bristol, 1833, pp. 42-43)

II

Two great qualities of Rammohun’s political thought have always been its clarity and objectivity. As an Indian, he certainly took legitimate pride in the great past achievements of his country (Cf. above, pp. 207-08). But at the same time he was clear-sighted enough to realise that the Indian civilization of his day had been passing through a phase of all-round decadence. The political and social chaos of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries had destroyed all semblance of administrative unity. The national character had sunk into an abyss of corruption and intrigue. A standard of social ethics was almost non-existent. Indigenous tradition was blissfully ignorant of the epoch-making achievements of European science and technology and was still clinging fondly to out-dated methods in the fields of agriculture and trade. In short the comatose India of the late eighteenth century had completely exhausted herself and lost the creative urge in almost every sphere of national life. Such an atmosphere could not certainly be congenial to the growth of progressive nationalism which would view the removal of foreign rule as only a half-measure and would never rest content until it could harmonise all the modern values with the best in the country’s age-old culture. To such an attitude British rule was welcome inspite of all the curses it had brought in its wake, because through it India had been able to come in contact with the civilisation of the West. This was the only association that could revitalise her during the crisis. As the earliest champion of constructive nationalism, Rammohun therefore did not hesitate to extend a cordial welcome to British rule in India though he was not for a single moment blind to its darker aspects. This explains the eulogy with which he closes his Final Appeal to the Christian Public: “I now conclude my Essay by offering up thanks to the Supreme Disposer of the events of the universe for having unexpectedly delivered this country from the long-continued tyranny of its former Rulers, and placed it under the government of the English,—a nation who not only are blessed with the enjoyment of civil and political liberty, but also interest themselves in promoting liberty and social happiness, as well as free inquiry into literary and religious subjects, among those nations to which their influence extends.” (The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy edited by Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti Burman, Part VII, Calcutta 1958, pp. 177-78). The passage however reflects Rammohun’s attitude towards British rule only partially. He himself never regarded this judgment as final and believed that the future generation would be, from experience, in a position to speak with greater authority on the advantages or disadvantages of the British empire. To quote from his Brief Remarks Regarding Modern Encroachment on the Ancient Rights of Females According to the Hindu Law of Inheritance (published in 1822): “At present the whole empire (with the exception of a few provinces) has been placed under the British power, and some advantages have already been derived from the prudent management of its rulers, from whose general character a hope of future quiet and happiness is justly entertained. The succeeding generation will, however, be more adequate to pronounce on the real advantages of this government (The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy edited by Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti Burman, Part I, Calcutta 1945, p. 1n). This extremely shrewd and cautious observation indicates that in Rammohun’s opinion only a long trial might show whether British rule would ultimately turn out to be a blessing for India.

While expressing the above mature view on the British administration of his own day, Rammohun did not hesitate to go further and visualise a future when India would completely regain her political independence. The following instances from his writings would go to support such a conclusion:

(a) In a letter to Mr. J. Crawford, dated August 18, 1828, he writes: “Supposing that some 100 years hence the Native character becomes elevated from constant intercourse with Europeans and the acquirements of general and political knowledge as well as of modern arts and sciences, is it possible that they will not have the spirit as well as the inclination to resist effectually any unjust and oppressive measures serving to degrade them in the scale of society? It should not be lost sight of that the position of India is very different from that of Ireland, to any quarter of which an English fleet may suddenly convey a body of troops that may force its way in the requisite direction and succeed in suppressing every effort of a refractory spirit. Were India to share one fourth of the knowledge and energy of that country she would prove from her remote situation, her riches and her vast population, either useful and profitable as a willing province, an ally of the British Empire or troublesome and annoying as a determined enemy. (italics ours—Editors.) (Cf. above, pp. 267-68).

(b) In his Remarks on the Settlement in India by Europeans Rammohun also clearly hints at the possibility of India becoming politically independent at some distant future: “If, however, events should occur to effect a separation between the two countries then still the existence of a large body of settlers (consisting of Europeans and their descendants ..) would bring that vast Empire in the East to a level with other large Christian countries in Europe”…Again a little later he goes on: “Yet……if events should occur to effect a separation which may arise from many accidental causes, about which it is vain to speculate or make predictions), still friendly and highly advantageous commercial intercourse may be kept up between two free and Christian countries united as they will then be by resemblance of language religion and manners”. (Italics ours—Editors; The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy ed. Nag and Burman, Part III, pp. 82-83, 85; Majumdar Raja Rammohun Roy and Progressive Movements in India pp. 458, 460; Cf. also above pp. 336-37, 338).

The above passages hint only at future possibilities. But Rammohun’s statements to M. Victor Jacquemont, the French naturalist and traveller and Mr. Sandford Arnot are much more definite and straight-forward. Jacquemont records on June 25, 1829, after a conversation with Rammohun Roy in Calcutta, that the latter had said to him: “India requires many more years of English domination so that she might not have to lose many things while she is reclaiming her political independence” (“Il faut à l’ Inde bien des années de domination anglaise pour qu’elle puisse ne pas perdre beaucoup en ressaisissant son indépendence politique.”—Victor Jacquemont Voyage dans l’Inde Tome I, Paris 1841, p. 187). For an English translation of Jacquemont’s remarks on Rammohun Roy, see Nirod Chandra Chaudhuri, “A Portrait of Rajah Rammohun Roy” in the Modern Review for June, 1926, pp. 689-92. To this we may add the testimony of Sandford Arnot who says about Rammohun: “He…..always contended…..for the necessity of continuing British rule for at least forty or fifty years to come for the good of the people themselves…” (Asiatic Journal vol. xii, New Series, September to December, 1833, p. 212; Cf. above, p. 353; italics ours—Editors).

Rammohun then had certatnly in view a time when India would stand independent of British rule. He was only anxious that before the termination of foreign domination on her soil, India might reap the full advantage of her contact with the West established through the medium of British administration and bring herself out of the clutches of medievalism in all spheres of national life. Perhaps no better summing up of Rammohun’s position, is possible than in the words of Rev. William Adam who had more than anyone, else,—the opportunity of knowing the former’s mind in this respect: “He saw,—a man of his acute mind and local knowledge could not but see—the selfish, cruel and almost insane errors of the English in governing India, but he also saw that their system of Government and policy had redeeming qualities not to be found in the native governments. Without seeking to destroy, therefore, his object was to reform and improve the system of foregin government to which his native country had become subject; and without stimulating his countrymen to discontent or disaffection, his endeavour was by teaching them a pure religion and promoting among them an enlightened education to qualify them for the enjoyment of more extensive civil and political franchises than they yet possessed. … he joined with some noble-minded, far-seeing Englishmen who have expressed the opinion that the wisest and most honourable course, the justest and most humane, which England can pursue towards India is by education and by a gradual development of the principle of civil and political liberty in the public institutions she establishes and sanctions, to prepare the natives ultimately to take the government of their own country into their own hands. To co-operate in bringing about such a result, was one of Rammohun Roy’s unceasing aims; …” (William Adam A Lecture on the Life and Labours of Rammohun Roy delivered in Boston, U.S.A., 1845; edited by Rakhaldas Haldar and published by G. P. Roy & Co., Calcutta, 1879, pp. 26-27).

A moderniser as he principally is, Rammohun is also India’s first dreamer of political independence in the modern age.

III

It appears plain to any reader of the full text of Rammohun’s Remarks on the Settlement of India by Europeans that its author most certainly did not anticipate the Christianization of India anywhere in the statement (Cf. the text in Majumdar’s Raja Rammohun’s Roy and the Progressive Movements in India No. 238, pp. 457-60, and also in The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy ed. Nag and Burman, Part III pp. 81-85). There are two references to Christianity in the India of the future, in the paper. First, while enumerating the advantages of the settlement in India of the Europeans Rammohun points out that should India be able to wrest her freedom from the British authorities in future, the European settlers in this country and their descendants would still continue to serve as a bond of union between a free India and other Christian countries of Europe by virtue of their Christian Faith (Majumdar, Op. cit. p. 458; English Works iii pp. 82-83; also above, pp. 336-37). There is thus no question of the Indian population turning Christian. Secondly, later in the statement in course of his description of the fourth disadvantage of European settlement in this country Rammohun speaks of the independent India of the future and England as “two free and Christian countries” (Majumdar Op. cit. p. 460; English Works iii. p. 85; above, p. 338). But the spirit here is the same. The Christianity of the European settlers of this country is held up as a possible link between free India and England. It is the only meaning that appears to be consistent with the earlier remark.

We have already seen that Rammohun had stood resolutely against the idea of Indians being converted to Christianity and he had returned a polite but negative answer to Rev. Henry Ware’s query “whether if it be desirable that the inhabitants of India should be converted to Christianity”? (Cf. above, pp. 165-66; The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy ed. Nag and Burman, Part IV p. 43). It may also be remembered that Rammohun had parted company from Rev. William Adam chiefly because the latter had desired to use the Anglo-Hindu School or the newly founded Brahmo Samaj for Unitarian Missionary propaganda (Cf. above, pp. 242-48).

It thus seems hardly possible to assent to the continuator’s thesis that Rammohun had visualized a Christian India in the sense that the entire native population of this country would eventually be converted to Christianity. To say this however is not to deny Rammohun’s great respect for Christ and Christianity as well as his firm conviction that the settlement of Europeans belonging to the Christian Faith, would be a great blessing for this country. All through his life he stuck passionately to the impression he had formed early in his career, that the moral precepts of Christianity were unrivalled in the realm of ethics and their dissemination in India would be one of the most desirable consequences of India’s western contact. (Cf. above, pp. 153, 244-45). From this premise it was quite natural and easy for him to pass to the conclusion that the presence of a large body of Christian settlers from Europe in this country would quicken that process of dissemination and thus raise the standard of Indian public morals considerably. To absorb the best in the teaching of Christ is however not the same thing as conversion to Christianity.

Further, the continuator’s assertion that Rammohun in the above statement, has pleaded a socially anglicized India “possessing the opulence intelligence and public spirit and also the language religion and manners of the English race”, requires considerable modification. (Cf. above pp. 339, 341) Rammohun was a well-known advocate of the diffusion in this country of a knowledge of European arts and sciences and its consequent benefits. This would according to him gradually weed out the caste system and the other superstitions and thus remove the barrier separating India from the West. The presence of European settlers in India would no doubt be a great helping factor from this point of view as it would certainly enable the Indians not only to take lessons in Western science and technology but also to imbibe from personal contact with and example of the immigrants, many of the remarkable qualities that had made Europe great. Along with the spread of Western education the bulk of the Indian people would also gradually come to speak the English language along with the European settlers. But nowhere in the statement has Rammohun given the slightest hint that it was his desire to see India socially anglicized! He had, as we have seen, a dignified pride in his Indian and Asiatic heritage (Cf. above, pp. 207-08) and he was no believer in the inherent superiority of the West over the East (Cf. above, pp. 249-50). In his own way of life he never ceased to be an Indian in spite of his professed admiration for the West. All through his life it had been his persistent effort to absorb the best in the Western civlization without sacrificing his Oriental roots. This point has unfortunately been overlooked by the continuator (Rev. F. Herbert Stead) who belongs to that group of writers who have with all their admiration for Rammohun, misunderstood him here. A more recent example is Mr. Ulysses Young (vide his article “Rammohun Roy and the Modern World” in the East and West, Rome, Vol. V, No. 4, pp. 300-03)

IV

The reputation of Rammohun Roy as a remarkable man and a reformer had reached France long before his visit to Europe. M. D’Acosta, the editor of The Times at Calcutta, is said to have transmitted to Abbé Gregoire, Bishop of Blois (in France), in 1818, a number of Rammohun’s publications with some account of the story of the latter’s life and through the French clergyman Rammohun became extensively known and highly appreciated in France as early as the second decade of the nineteenth century (L. Carpenter Review of the Labours Opinions and Character of Rajah Rammohun Roy London and Bristol, 1833, p. 107). Abbé Gregoire circulated a French pamphlet on Rammohun and his works which he had composed on the basis of the informations supplied by M. D’Acosta and this was afterwards inserted in the Chronique Religieuse and part of it was published in English garb in the Monthly Repository (vol. xv, 1820). (Mary Carpenter Last Days in England of Rajah Rammohun Roy Calcutta 1915, pp. 48-54). In 1820 the Revue Encyclopédique (vol. vii) published a list of eight of Rammohun’s works (quoted by Adrienne Moore Rammohun Roy and America Calcutta, 1942, pp. 121-22). Later on another list of his works is found to appear in the August (1823) issue of the Journal Asiatique (pp. 117-19), the organ of the Société Asiatique of France. The October (1823) issue of the same journal published a detailed article on Rammohun and his works by M. Lanjuinais (‘Observations sur quelques ouvrages de Rammohun Roy”, Journal Asiatique I Ser., Tome III, pp. 243-49). Subsequently the Société Asiatique (the French counterpart of the Asiatic Societies of India and Great Britain) appointed a three-member commission consisting of M. Lanjuinais, M. Klaproth and M. Burnouf to investigate into Rammohun’s competence as scholar and to decide whether he could be considered fit for the honorary membership of that body. On the unanimous recommendation of the Commission, Rammohun was elected honorary member of the Société Asiatique on the 5th July, 1824 (Journal Asiatique I Ser. Tome V, Paris, 1824, p. 62). Rammohun’s name and fame had thus been already familiar in the scholarly circle of France when he visited that country and the warm welcome he received during his short visit was nothing unexpected. Of the foreign countries France can claim the distinction of having been the first to bestow academic honour on Rammohun Roy. (See for a thorough discussion of the whole topic Dilip Kumar Biswas’ Bengali article “Rammohun Raya O PharasI VidvanmandalI” in the Visvabhāratī Patrikā Vol. xv. No. 1, pp. 62-74). The eminent French scholar M. Garcin de Tassy had also apparently known Rammohun for long time, for he specifically mentions having received many letters from him in Hindusthani and in English (“…que j’ai en l’avantage de voir souvent pendant son séjour à Paris, et dont J’ai réçu plusieurs lettres en hindoustani et en anglais”.—Garcin de Tassy Histoire de la Littérature Hindouie et Hindoustani Seconde édition, Paris, Tome II p. 548). Another instance of the great popularity of Rammohun’s name in France in the third decade of the nineteenth century, is furnished by the testimony of Victor Jacquemont who had already heard of the Indian savant’s great talents, before he left France for India and eventually met him in Calcutta in 1829 “(Ram-Mohan-Roy est le brahme savant dont les ouvrages de polémique religieuse contre les docteurs hindóus et les missonaires européens ont fait connaitre le nom jusqu’en France. Je savais avant de venir dans l’Inde qu’il était un Orientaliste habile, un subtil logicien, un dialecticien irresistable: mais j’ignorais quil était le meilleur des hommes”—Victor Jacquemont Voyage dans l’Inde Tome I, Paris, 1841 p. 183). We may also take note here of the high tribute paid to Rammohun by the celebrated Sismondi in his article “Recherches sur la syesteme colonial pour le Gouvernement de l’Inde” in the Revue Encyclopédique November, 1824. For the English version see Mary Carpenter, The Last Days pp. 20-21.

It is pleasant to think that Rammohun’s great admiration for France and the French nation had been reciprocated in so warm and honourable a manner by eminent Frenchmen of his day.

V

A. Rammohun Roy’s letters to C. W. Wynn.

In his note dated, April 16th, 1832, Rammohun writes: “From the high opinion R. R. entertains of Mr. Wynn’s constitutional learning, he feels a wish to know from him confidentially whether in Mr. Wynn’s opinion R. R. is eligible to sit in Parliament. He begs to add that it is not from any ambition to assume so arduous an office but from a desire to pave the way for his countrymen for which object R. R. might for a few months, undertake the task (italics ours—Editors).

Mr. Wynn in his reply gave a general assurance without definitely committing himself: “…I conceive generally that any person born within the British dominions is a British subject and as such here entitled to all the privileges of a native of Great Britain . . .”

Rammohun further wrote in his letter dated April 19, 1832, to Mr. Wynn: “I will seriously reflect on the purport of your letter and shall not fail to communicate the result if I can come to any determination on the subject.”

We do not know how far Rammohun proceeded in the matter after this. Possibly his illness and death cut the project short. What one should particularly remember is that he toyed with the idea at this stage of his life to further the interests of his countrymen as he says in his note of April 16, 1832. It is interesting to reflect that had he been spared a few years more he might possibly have succeeded in preceding Dadabhai Nauroji and Saklatwala as the first Indian Member of the British Parliament.

The above correspondence, it has been said, was brought to light by Mr. Sivnarayan Sen (Cf. above, p. 353n). Rammohun’s letters to Mr. Wynn have subsequently been printed also in his English Works ed. Nag and Burman. Part IV pp. 104-05.

B. Rammohun Roy’s letter dated August 25, 1833.

The following is the text of the letter the original of which is preserved in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (No. 92674):

48, Bedford Square August 25th 1833.

Dear Sir,

As every person of a reflecting turn of mind feels interested about antiquities, I have the pleasure of sending the accompanying translation which gives an account of the system of religion prevailing in Central India at the time of Alexander the Great and beg your acceptance of it. My health has been rather indifferent; I therefore intend to proceed to Wales through Bristol by Thursday next. I hope you will present my best regards to your worthy parents. I have the honor to be

Dear Sir Your most obedient servant Rammohun Roy

The identity of the addressee is not known. In one respect the contents bear resemblance to those of the letter written by Rammohun to Mr. Woodford of Brighton, on the 22nd August, 1833 (Cf. above, p. 352). Here, as also in the said letter to Mr. Woodford, Rammohun mentions having attached a “translation” containing an account of the system of religion which prevailed in Central India at the time of the Indian invasion of Alexander the Great. One wonders whether this “translation” was made by Rammohun himself from the original Greek writings of Alexander’s companions or of subsequent authors like Megasthenes. If so, it would be a fresh and eloquent testimony to his mastery of Greek. It should be remembered that the official English translation of these accounts were published long after Rammohun’s death.

VI

It is unfortunate that none of his friends, contemporaries and near-contemporaries in England ever made any attempt to record systematically the development of Rammohun’s political and social thought during the latter’s last days. Biographers like Miss Mary Carpenter, Miss Collet and Rev. H. F. Stead (the continuator of Miss Collet’s narrative) were perhaps temperamentally not quite suited to the task and the accounts left by Mr. Sandford Arnot and Mr. James Sutherland are also inadequate in this respect. Apart from the temperamental lack of interest, most of them were obsessed with the nineteenth century English concept of the omnipotence of the British Empire and occasionally there is to be perceived in some of the accounts a conscious or unconscious effort to harmonise Rammohun’s views with the official administrative policy of the British Government. Thus paying tribute to Rammohun’s evidence on Indian affairs before the Board of Control, Dr. Carpenter commended it for having “aided in the formation of the new system by which the wellbeing of our vast dependencies in India must be so greatly affected . . .” (italics ours—Editors; Cf. above, pp. 383). The continuator shows himself frankly apprehensive of Rammohun’s French sympathies (Cf. above, pp 334-35), and assures us that after all Rammohun’s suggestions for the reform of the Indian Government “were of no extreme type.” (Cf. above p. 354). In his final summing up he further characterizes one of the features of the new ideals represented by the Raja as a “prudent even timid disinclination towards revolt” (Cf. above, p. 379), and holds Rammohun as an index of “what our greatest Eastern dependency may yet become under the Imperial sway of the British commonalty” (Cf. above, p. 380). Mr. Arnot in the article in the Asiatic Journal, Vol. XII, New Series, (September to December, 1833), hastens to prove that Rammohun was a moderate in politics (pp. 211-12). He protests against the opinion of “a writer in the daily papers” that Rammohun was a republican. “I know of no ground for this opinion;” he says, “if there be any, it must have reference to an early period in his life. He may have approved of it, in theory, while surrounded by power more or less arbitrary from the form of government existing in his country;…” (p. 211). Mr. James Sutherland in his excellent sketch (India Gazette February 18, 1834, reprinted in the Calcutta Review Vol. 57, No. 1, p. 69) also expresses the opinion that Rammohun was not a republican in politics at least so far as England was concerned and he “admired republicanism in the abstract and thought that in America it worked well”. It is thus not difficult to see that these valuable narratives are at least sometimes coloured by a tendency on the part of the writers to emphasize Rammohun’s role as the “loyal subject of the Empire”.

Rammohun’s sympathies for the cause and ideals of Revolution all over the world and his vision of complete political independence for his country in future, are well-known and need not be discussed again. (Cf. above, pp. 161-63, 385-87; regarding the French Revolution, see Sutherland’s testimony, above, p. 308.) But from the accounts of both Arnot and Sutherland it appears that at least in some circles in England there was an impression that Rammohun had been a confirmed republican in politics. However much both of them might try to explain it away, they had not been able to ignore it. There are no means at present of ascertaining the grounds for the growth of such a belief. It is however significant that both Arnot and Sutherland have been obliged to admit that republicanism at least as an abstract principle, did form a part of Rammohun’s political thought.

More revealing in this respect are Arnot’s remarks on Rammohun’s attitude towards the Grey Ministry after his return from France. “He had been”, says Arnot, “an enthusiastic advocate of the Grey administration from his arrival in Europe, till his departure for France, in the autumn of last year. Whether it was that he imbibed some fresh light from Louis Philippe and his subjects, or that the First Reformed Parliament disappointed him or that he had taken some personal disgust at the present ministry (the most probable of the three) he became most bitterly opposed to it….He was in the habit of inveiging against it in the strongest…terms.” (Asiatic Journal New Series, Vol. xii, September to December, 1833, p. 212) That this is a faithful representation of Rammohun’s views, is proved by the following extract from his letter to Mr. Woodford, dated August 22, 1833 (Cf. above, p. 352; also The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy ed. Nag and Burman Part IV p. 93): “The reformed Parliament has disappointed the people of England; the ministers may perhaps redeem their pledge during next session.” Rammohun had come to England full of enthusiasm for the Reform question and had been over-joyed at the passing of the First Reform Bill (Cf. above, pp. 333-34). What is then the cause of this volte face during the last year of his life? It is not possible to find a satisfactory answer to the question, but the few facts we have before us, might suggest certain lines of enquiry.

To the working class, the Reform Act and the Reformed Parliament had come as a great disappointment. It has been well-observed: “Although the Reform Bill was passed by strictly constitutional means, it could not have become law without an effective threat of revolution. To make such a threat effective, the middle class had to enlist the support of the working men, and this necessitated raising their hopes” (Bertrand Russell Freedom and Organization 1814-1914, London 1934, p. 145). But now the workers found themselves “voteless under a Government standing for the ideas and policy of the rising middle and the employing class”. The immediate consequence of this disappointment and disaffection of the wage-earners was the rapid growth of the trade-union movement which was enthusiastically led by Robert Owen, the founder of British Socialism, up to 1834 (G. D. H. Cole The Life of Robert Owen, London, 1930, pp. 266-92). It is interesting to find that it was during this phase of Owen’s life (sometime in 1832 or 1833?) that Rammohun came to form his acquaintance. From the account of Mr. Recorder Hill it appears that the two first met at a dinner party given by a mutual friend and they had an argument in course of which Owen unsuccessfully attempted to bring Rammohun over to his socialistic opinions (Cf. Mary Carpenter The Last Days in England of Rajah Rammohun Roy Calcutta 1915, p. 130; Cf. also above, p. 329). Fresh light is however thrown on the relationship between the two, from Rammohun Roy’s letter, dated April 19, 1833, to Owen’s son Robert Dale, which proves that the main point of disagreement between Rammohun and Robert Owen was the question of the admissibility of religion as a helping factor in “promoting the social, domestic and political welfare” of mankind. Deeply religious as he himself was, Rammohun could not assent to Owen’s total rejection of religion. But this did not hinder him from expressing his warm approval of Owen’s socialistic programme. He is found to conclude the letter by saying: “My desire to see you and your father crowned with success in your benevolent undertakings, has emboldened me to make these observations, a freedom which I hope, you will, in consideration of my motives, excuse”. (italics ours.—Editors). Here is perhaps a possible clue to the development of Rammohun’s political thought during the last days of his life. He had been interested in the lot of the common man from an early period of his career (Cf. Nagendranath Chatterjee Mahatma Raja Rammohun Rayer Jibancharit 5th Ed. pp. 510-12) and in his “Communication” to the Board of Control regarding the Revenue system of India he appears publicly as the champion of the peasantry (Cf. above, pp. 319-20; also The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy ed. Nag and Barman, Part III pp. 45-47, 58, 61). It is no wonder therefore that to a philanthrophist of his stature Owen’s socialistic programme would have a strong attraction inspite of their fundamental difference in outlook over-religion. It is possible though unfortunately definite evidence is lacking, that the origin of Rammohun’s disillusionment regarding the Reformed Parliament of 1832 would ultimately have to be traced to this source.

For the text of Rammohun’s letter written to Robert Dale Owen, see Appendix VII.

VII

These “evidences” in favour of Rammohun’s leanings towards a “full fledged acceptance of the Christian faith” have been considered sufficient by Dr. Lant Carpenter (A Review of the Labours, Opinions and Character of Rammohun Roy pp. 82-85) and also by Miss Mary Carpenter who followed her father in virtually identifying Rammohun with Unitarian Christianity (The Last Days in England of Rajah Rammohun Roy, Calcutta 1915, pp. 152-56). But their conclusion did not go unchallenged and was later criticised in detail by Kishory Chand Mitra (vide his article “Rammohun Roy” in the Calcutta Review Vol. IV, 1845, pp. 387-92: and also his review of the first edition of Miss Carpenter’s Last Days in England of Rajah Rammohun Roy in the same journal, Vol. XLIV, 1867, pp. 219-33); and Nagendranath Chatterjee (Mahatma Raja Rammohun Rayer Jibancharit 5th edition pp. 606-11). In fact earlier in India also we witness similar eagerness in the circle of Rammohun’s Unitarian friends to prove him a Christian or at least a near-Christian (Cf. above, pp. 210-14). It is but natural that honest and sincere men like William Adam and Lant Carpenter with their missionary propensities and their conception of Hinduism as “idolatry”, would see a considerable amount of Christian influence on Rammohun’s religious creed. Rammohun’s great reverence for Christianity in general and his repeated emphasis on the impressive moral beauty of the teachings of Christ undoubtedly provided some ground for such a belief. But as it has been ably shown by Nagendranath Chatterjee, this was in no way inconsistent with Rammohun’s universal outlook in religion (Chatterjee, Op. Cit. pp. 606-07, 609-10). It should further be noted that in Europe he had practically no opportunity to associate himself with any religious bodies other than the different sects of Christians. His religious discussions and conversations in the West therefore had necessarily to be on Christian themes. It was not possible to discuss the subtle points of Hindu or Islamic doctrines in the circle that welcomed Rammohun during his English visit. As he believed in the quintessence of every religion, “he was able to approach” in the words of the continuator, “the advocates of the different creeds with a sympathy and emphasis on points of agreement, which they could only interpret as complete adhesion.” (Cf. above, pp. 359-70). But that at heart he lived true to the Indian Vedantic tradition, is proved by his constant utterance of the holy pranava (ॐ) during his last hours as faithfully observed by those who were near him (Cf. above, p. 361). Further, immediately before the Raja’s death, one of his Indian attendants, Ramratna Mukherji uttered a prayer in the dying man’s ears in which as Dr. Carpenter notes, “the frequent repetition of the word ‘OM’ was alone distinguished” (A Review of the Labours Opinions and Character of Rammohun Roy p. 121). Earlier in his career also Rammohun had always shown his preference for the contemplative aspects of Oriental religions like Hinduism and Islam. To Chandrasekhar Deb he declared that Hinduism, particularly of the Vedantic brand, was the most advanced religion of the world if by ‘religion’ one would mean the “blessings of self-knowledge” (Cf. above, pp. 97-98). Kishory Chand Mitra records that Rammohun once expressed a desire to retire to a solitary cave in his old age and spend his last days studying the Vedanta and the Mesnavi of the Persian mystic and poet Rumi (Calcutta Review Vol IV. 1845, p. 366). Unfortunately this side of his spiritual life was almost a sealed book to his Christian friends in England.

Regarding the “evidences” collected by Dr. Carpenter in favour of his hypothesis that Rammohun was heading towards a full-fledged acceptance of the Christian creed, it would be enough to say that one may differ over the question of their interpretation, although one may never doubt their authenticity. It is quite certain that John Foster and J. B. Estlin had a discussion about the Christian doctrines and miracles with Rammohun at Bristol and whatever Rammohun might have said, they quite honestly and sincerely convinced themselves that he had been expressing his faith in the Resurrection and the Christian miracles. It is however human nature to give sometimes a subjective colouring to facts and conclusions one receives from outside, and in sincere adherents of a religious creed the possibility is admittedly greater than usual. We cannot be sure that the present case does not furnish a notable instance of this common human characteristic.

Further, it may be observed, that even allowing for a moment that Rammohun did express during his last days in Bristol, a faith in the Resurrection and the Christian miracles, it is not easy to see how that can lead to the inference as to his unquestionable acceptance of Christianity Mr. Estlin’s disclosure that the Indian savant denied the Divinity of Christ but emphasized the “Divine mission of Christ”,—clearly points to the oppsite direction. It is a position which any non-Christian might take without compromising his own particular religious tenets. Miracles again are no monopoly of Christianity—and are the stock-in-trade of practically all the religious systems of the world. Belief in the resurrection of saints has a long history in India and form part practically of all the popular Indian creeds. An Indian therefore can perfectly believe in the Resurrection of Christ without necessarily adopting Christianity.

VIII

The controversy started with the claim advanced by Mr. Sandford Arnot that Rammohun’s “literary work in English owed more than was generally supposed” to the assistance of his secretary i.e. Arnot himself. We learn from the letter of H. H. Wilson to Dewan Ramkamal Sen (Cf. above, pp. 355-56). that Arnot had already started the game during Rammohun’s life-time. As the Raja’s secretary in England he had begun to press his employer for the payment of large sums of money “which he called arrears of salary”, and threatened Rammohun, in case of non-payment, to claim as his own writing all that Rammohun had published in England. It is however significant that inspite of these private threats of blackmail, Arnot had not the courage to make any public statement to that effect, as long as Rammohun lived. After the latter’s death, the claim was put forward twice in print. Better known is the sketch, in the Asiatic Journal, New Series, Vol. XII (September to December 1833) in which it was declared (p. 209): “It has been said that he [Rammohun] wrote English much better than he spoke it. The reason is that what he spoke was really his own; but his writings were generally, to some extent, the composition of others. We are assured, on good authority, that during the period he was in Europe, except for a few months, besides an amanuensis, he had the constant assistance, in drawing up all papers or letters of any importance, (his remarks on the revenue and judicial systems of India, on the suttee question, etc.) from an old Indian friend, connected with the press and politics of Bengal; and that he scarcely sent a line out of his hands without his secretary’s revision, unless, as often happened, it was actually composed by him beforehand. How much his reputation as an elegant writer, may therfore be attributable to others, both here and in India, can only be conjectured. As he was exceedingly ambitious of literary fame, he took care, both in Europe and in India, to obtain the best assistance he could get, both European and native. His works therefore, do not furnish an absolute criterion of his literary talents, although these were considerable”. The article in the Asiatic Journal is not wholly the formal composition of Arnot. (Cf. Asiatic Journal Vol XVI, New Series, January to April 1835, p 24.) The portions marked off by inverted commas, are directly from his pen. The rest was the work of another hand. There is however no doubt that the entire piece was largely inspired by Arnot and was based on materials supplied by him. The passage quoted above, though it does not form part of the sections said to have been directly written by him, could not have been included without his collaboration and it can be safely assumed that the “old Indian friend connected with the press and politics of Bengal” is in the present context none but Arnot himself. Contemporaries in England knew it and rightly associated Arnot with the article. For the same assertion had already been made by him directly under his own name, earlier in a letter to the Times, London, November 23, 1833, p. 3, in the following slightly different language: “I drew almost every other paper, letter, and note, great and small, which he wrote in this country, for above two years, from the time of his arrival in Europe as Envoy of the King of Delhi, during which I acted as his secretary.”

Mr. John Hare, brother of David Hare, and one of the closest associates of Rammohun in England, sent the following letter of protest to the Times, December 11, 1833, p. 6, giving a dignified reply to Arnot:

To,

The Editor of the Times

Sir,

I regret much to be compelled to solicit the insertion of a few remarks in your journal, devoted as it is, so usefully to subjects of public importance, on one which is to a considerable degree of a private nature, but as my remarks relate to an eminent individual lately deceased the Rajah Rammohun Roy……

Mr. Arnot however takes occasion to introduce in this incidental discussion assertions of much importance to the literary and moral character of the Rajah Rammohun Roy, and which it is impossible, consistently in duty, for those of his friends who have it in their power and revere his memory, not to controvert. I allude to the bold assertions first made by him in your paper, and subsequently repeated in another highly respectable publication, that he “drew up” from the Rajah’s instructions merely, “every paper, letter, note, great and small, which he wrote in this country for about two years.” I have had personal observation of the Rajah’s literary and other pursuits during the whole period alluded to by Mr. Arnot, and I am perfectly acquainted with his uniform mode of composition, both for the press and epistolary correspondence. I therefore, with such means of judging, should express my utter astonishment that Mr. Arnot could make such an assertion, if I had not been already prepared for it previously to the Rajah’s death, from having become cognizant of a pecuniary demand made on him by Mr. Arnot, supported on the intimidating influence of these assertions, from which the last days of the Rajah were employed in defending himself and literally the last stroke of his pen occupied in denying.

Under these circumstances, I consider it as a sacred duty to lay the whole statement of the facts before the public that it may form a correct opinion between the Rajah and Mr. Arnot.

I had hoped not to have been compelled to advert in any public manner to this painful subject, connected, as I fear it was, with a much more painful result, and particularly wishing to avoid anything likely to occasion collision over the poor Rajah’s recent grave; but Mr. Arnot has with such pertinacity and deliberation come before the public with assertions so much to the prejudice of the Rajah’s fair name, both as to literary talents and ingenuousness, that there appears no alternative left for those possessed of the facts and of the Rajah’s own sentiments and declarations in denial of such assertions, but to submit them to an impartial public in defence of one who is no longer here to defend himself.

J. H.

But the most detailed and effective reply to Arnot’s accusations came from Dr. Lant Carpenter who had devoted a section of his book A Review of the Labours, Opinions and Character of Rammohun Roy to a searching examination of the derogatory remarks of Rammohun’s erstwhile secretary. We are appending here the relevant portions of his remarks (A Review of the Labours, Opinions and Character of Rammohun Roy London and Bristol, 1833, pp. 128-36):

“The last topic I have to consider is a derogatory statement as to aid received by the Rajah in the composition of his works; in itself more definite than the foregoing respecting his intellectual powers, more imposing and extensive in its influence, and, apparently, less tangible for refutation; which, nevertheless, is without any just foundation. “It has been said” (are the words of the Asiatic Journal, p. 209), “that he wrote English much better than he spoke it. The reason is that what he spoke was really his own; but his writings were generally, to some extent, the composition of others. We are assured, on good authority, that during the period he was in Europe, except for a few months, besides an amanuensis, he had the constant assistance, in drawing up all papers or letters of any importance, (his remarks on the revenue and judicial systems of India, on the suttee question, &c.) from an old Indian friend, connected with the press and politics of Bengal;* and that he scarcely sent a line out of his hands without his secretary’s revision, unless, as often happened, it was actually composed by him beforehand. How much of his reputation, as an elegant writer, may therefore be attributable to others, both here and in India, can only be conjectured. As he was exceedingly ambitious of literary fame, he took care, both in Europe and in India, to obtain the best assistance he could get, both Europen and native. His works, therefore, do not furnish an absolute criterion of his literary talents, although these were no doubt considerable.”

Previously, as it appears, to the receiving of this statement, “on good authority”, the Asiatic Journal had (in p. 202) expressed itself as follows.

“The admiration which the writings of Ram Mohun now began to excite in Europe as well as in India, (for he and his works were at this time extensively known in France,) was not limited to the justness of the reasoning, the soundness of the reflections, and the general good sense which pervaded them; his correct English style was a subject of astonishment to those who know with what difficulty even a native of foreign Europe acquires a critical knowledge of its niceties. Upon this point, however, we shall have something to say by and bye.” The last sentence obviously arose from subsequent information.

I observe (1), in reference to this last-cited paragraph, that an oriental scholar, familiar from his youth with the Persian and Arabic, (to say nothing of the Sanscrit,) and accustomed to all the refinements of grammar in these languages and his own, would be far more prepared to acquire the power of accurate composition in the English language than almost any “native of foreign Europe”. I have letters from our eminent Persian visitor, Jaafar Hewsainey, who with Meerza Saulih came to Bristol in 1818, after he had been four years in England, which, though Oriental in thought, are more English in texture, than would reasonably be expected from a native of France after residing among us twice that period. And at the late Scientific Meeting at Cambridge, I heard a young Egyptian, Homer Effendi, deliver an extemporaneous speech, which was marked by the correctness of its English, far beyond what we generally observe from foreign Europeans.

But again (2), “the justness of the reasoning, the soundness of the reflections, and the general good sense which pervaded the writings of Rammohun Roy”, are independent of the correctness of the English style; and they constitute the essence of a composition. If therefore, as insinuated in the first-cited paragraph, the papers, letters, &c. of the Rajah, were ever “actually composed” by his Secretary, then the Rajah was himself the amanuensis. But, as will appear, the Secretary had no claim either to the composition or to the English.

(3) The Rajah, however, in my judgment, did not “write English much better than he spoke it”. He manifested, in conversation, singular, precision in the selection and in the arrangement of words; and where he felt at ease, and had no apprehension of captious opposition or criticism, he spoke with great fluency also. Persons who did not discriminate between his style, and his pronunciation of our language, have often expressed surprise that he spoke English so ill. But they would at once have seen their error, if they could have read what they had heard, by its being taken down, without his knowledge, as it was uttered. I have already remarked (p. 43) that the last portion of the Rajah’s Exposition, (in which, from the nature of the subject, he writes with the greatest freedom,) “is so strongly characteristic of his style in conversation, that, while reading it, one seems to hear him uttering the words.” I never heard him converse with less correctness, in point of English; though there was occasional hesitation in the selection of words.

(4) As to his power of speaking English, we may go back to fifteen years, and take the declaration of Lieut. Col. Fitzclarence, who was “well acquainted with him”, that his “eloquence in our language” was even then “very great”, and that he had “gained a thorough acquaintance with the English language and literature”. In 1818, “says Mr. Buckingham” (Month. Rep. for 1823) “I was introduced to Rammohun Roy at the house of Mr. Eneas Mackintosh (now in London) and was surprised at the unparalleled accuracy of his language, never having before heard any foreigner of Asiatic birth speak so well, and esteeming his fine choice of words as worthy [of] the imitation even of Englishmen”. Mr. Buckingham had first conversed with him in Arabic; but accident changing the conversation to English, he was (he says) “delighted and surprised at his perfection in this tongue”. After mentioning his great acquirements in the languages, he says, “In English he is competent to converse freely on the most abstruse subjects”.⁷¹

(5) As to his power of composition in writing, there is clear internal evidence that his works are essentially, and even formally, his own. No sound and experienced judge of style, could read any part of his writings without perceiving characteristics which decide the source. A unity and identity of style runs through them. There is a peculiar simplicity in the mode of expression which forms one of the striking characteristics of his writings, and which identifies the Author…. In Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine for Sept. 1823, is an interesting and ably written letter respecting him, (copied into the Monthly Repository of the same year,) obviously from the pen of some one personally well acquainted with him. The writer gives a note from Rammohun Roy, “written without the slightest aid or preparation”, the neat correctness of which proves that he needed no aid when he had time for preparation. “His proficiency in English (says the writer) is best shown by the style of his composition, as the powers of his mind are by the force of his reasonings which have been declared by one of the ablest judges living, to be stronger and clearer than any thing yet produced on the side of the question which he has espoused”…referring to the controversy with the Missionaries. And he afterwards says, “For the recent commencement of the Bengalee and Persian newspapers in Calcutta, much, if not all, is due to Rammohun Roy’s patronage and exertions; and many of the best articles published in them are ascribed to his pen. His argumentative talents are of the first order; and are aided by a remarkable memory, exceeding patience, and the gentlest temper.”.. Every thing conspires to prove, that even ten years ago, there was a general impression in Calcutta, that he had attained a singular proficiency in English composition; and most certainly, he did not in England require the aid of a native pen to compose his memorials and letters. The fact is, he was remarkably tenacious of his own modes of expression; and may be said to have piqued himself on his grammatical knowledge of our language, and his proper selection and arrangement of words. When dictating, he rarely departed from his own judgment in either; and when revising, it was he who made the corrections. The original of the admirable replies on the revenue and judicial systems of India still exists, as he dictated them, with the corrections in his own hand-writing; and considering the nature of the information given, and the sentiments expressed, together with the characteristic expression of them, it is not too much to say that none but himself could have written them.

His “infirmities”, (says the Asiatic Journal, in introducing the paragraph which has led to these statements,) “though not obvious to the world, could not be concealed from those who lived in closed intercourse with him”. Certainly he made no effort to conceal them, whatever they were. Ingenuousness and candour marked his friendly intimacies. Little is added to the views I have already given of his character, when I say that his chief infirmity, (to use the words of Mr. Arnot, in his well-written memoir in the Athenaeum,) was “a want of firmness to say that which would be unpleasant to individuals or bodies of men”; and of the “courage to say NO”. This infirmity, united with the unsuspecting candour of his disposition, led him sometimes to yield his confidence, where greater caution, or firmness, or knowledge of mankind, would have made him withhold it. But the paragraph, is employed to introduce a charge of a far different nature, affecting not merely his literary attainments, but his uprightness of character, and presenting him as always in a mask. ..I am happy in having the power to refute the charge, by the testimony of those who lived in the closest and most constant intercourse with him.

(6) Mr. Joseph Hare…his brother fully agreeing with him …assures me, that the Rajah was constantly in the habit of dictating, to those who were for the time acting as amanuenses, in phraseology requiring no improvement, whether for the press or for the formation of official documents—such verbal amendments only excepted, as his own careful revision supplied before the final completion of the manuscript; that he often had recourse to friends to write from his dictation: among others to himself and the members of his family: that it is his full conviction, that, from the day of the Rajah’s arrival in this country, he stood in no need of any assistance except that of a mere mechanical hand to write; and that he has often been struck…and recollects that he was particularly so at the time the Raja was writing his Answers to the Queries on the Judicial and Revenue Departments…with his quick and correct diction, and his immediate perception of occasional errors when he came to revise the matter. These facts I and others have repeatedly heard from the Mr. Hares; and I rest with conviction upon them. It is happy for the Rajah’s memory that he lived in the closest intimacy and confidence with friends who are able and willing to defend it, wherever truth and justice require.

…with such critical and logical accuracy in the use of the English language as he undoubtedly possessed, with a mode of composition in which precision clearness and effect on the hearer’s convictions seem the chief aim, with so obvious a unity of style as runs through his writings at various periods and so perfect an adaptation of it to the character of the sentiments expressed and with such testimony as is borne by his domestic friends to his actual habits of composition, it is not too much to expect that the well-judging part of the public will not be influenced by representations which in proportion to their influence throw a mist around his services and even his character to mislead those who did not know him personally and thoroughly. By those who had this privilege no such influence can be received.”

*The expression is rather obscure; but the “old Indian friend”, and the “Secretary” immediately mentioned, must mean the same person.

Both Mr. John Hare and H. H. Wilson were convinced as it appears from the letter of the former to the Times and that of the latter to Dewan Ramkamal Sen, that the real reason behind Arnot’s venomous outburst was his failure to fleece Rammohun during the latter’s life-time by threats of blackmail. Wilson does not conceal his real opinion of Arnot when he says in his letter to Ramkamal Sen: “…Rammohun had got amongst a low, needy, unprincipled set of people, and found out his mistake, I suspect when too late, which preyed upon his spirits and injured his health” (Cf. above, p. 356). The evidence of such a person would in itself be considered “suspect” by impartial students of history. In fact by making those wild statements Arnot was laying himself open to the charge of self-contradiction. for, in course of a life-sketch of Rammohun in the Athenaeum, London, October 5, 1833. he himself had previously paid eloquent tribute to Rammohun as a linguist in the following words: “The Rajah was acquainted more or less with ten languages: Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Hindusthani, Bengali, English, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and French. The two first he knew critically as a scholar, the third fourth fifth and sixth he spoke and wrote fluently; in the eighth perhaps his studies did not extend much beyond the originals of the Christian scriptures; and in the latter two his knowledge was apparently more limited” (quoted in The Father of Modern India: Rammohun Centenary Commemoration Volume Part II p. 132). It will be noticed that here Arnot includes English among the languages that Rammohun is said to have spoken and written fluently! In a rejoinder published in the Asiatic Journal Vol. XII, New Series, (September to December, 1833), (p. 288 footnote), Arnot gives another amazing instance of self-contradiction when he says: “He [Rammohun] spoke and wrote Bengali with classic elegance; in Hindusthani as a matter of course, he conversed with utmost ease, as well as in English”. (italics ours—Editors.)

It is thus not difficult to understand that his statement in the Times and the accusations which he managed to get inserted in the original article of the Asiatic Journal were prompted by something other than consideration for truth.

The most interesting part of the controversy however is that the merciless exposures of Mr. Hare and Dr. Carpenter had completely taken the wind out of Arnot’s sails. He retraced his steps and in the afore-mentioned rejoinder in the Asiatic Journal (Vol. XII, New Series, p. 289) had to come out with a feeble confession: “I claim no credit whatever for this. I did no more than, I suppose, every secretary does; that is, ascertains from his principal, what he wishes to say or prove on any given subject, receives a rough outline, and works it out in his own way, making as many points and giving as much force of diction, as he can. Is it expected or usual that an ambassador or envoy should be his own secretary? Is the fame of Prince Talleyrand injured by acknowledging some one in the same capacity?” Sandford Arnot had thus been put in his place by the lashing rebukes of Hare and Carpenter!

We would have considered the detailed discussion of this unfortunate controversy, a waste of space and energy if we did not happen to know that some modern writers like Dr. Sushil Kumar De (vide his Nānā Nibandha, 1st edition, Calcutta 1954, p. 234) and Brajendranath Banerji (Cf. his Sambādpatre Sekāler Kathā, Vol I, 3rd edition, pp. 468-71) would still fondly cling to the old charge of Arnot without caring to consider the motive that prompted the latter, his self-contradictions, and the contemporary criticisms of his views. Dr. De seems to have relied mainly on Kishorychand Mitra as far as this is concerned. But the latter it may be pointed out, was not at all well-informed on the subject and gives almost a verbatim reproduction of what has been said at the instigation of Arnot on p. 209 of the orginal article of the Asiatic Journal Vol. XII, New Series (Cf. his article “Rammohun Roy” in the Calcutta Review Vol. IV, 1845, p. 362), without taking into consideration or even showing any aquaintance with the elaborate replies of John Hare and Dr. Carpenter. Mr. Banerji once mentions Carpenter but does not give any evidence of having read him and he seems to be unaware of John Hare’s part in the controversy. Under these circumstances therefore, their attempts to revive Arnot’s charges totally fail to convince.⁷²