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THE HON. JAMES THOMASON

THE ACCOMPLISHED CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN.

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TEACHERS'
COLLEGE.

"The principal object of every Government is the happiness of the governed." Sir William Jones.

In the early years of the present century there was in Calcutta a little company of attached Christian friends, whose principal object was the spread of the Gospel among the people of India. The best known among them were Daniel Corrie, David Brown, and Thomas Thomason. They were all intimate friends of one, the lustre of whose name shines brighter even than theirs in the annals of Christian Missions in India; we mean, Henry Martyn, who, however, during his sojourn in India, was not often at Calcutta. James Thomason, the subject of the following brief memoir, was the son of the Reverend Thomas Thomason, one of the above-mentioned group of friends. He was born, on May 3, 1804, at Shelford, a pretty little village near Cambridge, where his father was the clergyman. When he was four years old, his father was appointed to a chaplaincy at Calcutta, and took him to India. On the voyage the vessel was wrecked, and the passengers were, with some difficulty and after much privation, providentially rescued.

At the rather advanced age of ten, James Thomason was sent to England, where he was entrusted to the care of the Rev. Charles Simeon, the intimate friend of his father, a devoted man of God, who had long lived at Cambridge, where he had been of the greatest service in stirring up religious activity and life among the members of the great University there. In fact, no man has, perhaps, ever been the instrument, under God, of infusing more spiritual life among the young students at Cambridge. He was unmarried, but he took the tenderest care of the boy who had •

DEPARTMENT,

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thus been entrusted to his charge. As was naturally to be expected, he was rather fussy and fidgetty regarding the ordinary details of everyday life; but Mr. Thomason owed a very great deal to the careful training he received from this eminent servant of God just at the very time that his youthful mind was most plastic and impressive. In after years this intimacy was the source of the greatest pleasure and satisfaction to both. After the younger man had left for India, the venerable Simeon wrote as follows regarding him, showing that his affection for him still remained undimmed: "I delight to hear such blessed tidings of dear James. We bear him in sweet remembrance, and most affectionately long for his welfare in every possible view."

The fact of his being kept in India longer than English children usually are, was prejudicial to his health, and rendered him backward in his studies. He was always rather delicate in constitution, which may be attributed to this cause; and, according to the common phrase in England, he outgrew his strength. He was tall and stooping in his gait, and, in later years, he had an accident at Agra, which caused him to limp the last five or six years of his life. We mention this here, because, although the mental deficiency occasioned by a late sojourn in India was overcome, the physical weakness was not entirely removed. After remaining a few years at school and at a private tutor's, James Thomason, having received a civil appointment, went to the East India Company's College at Haileybury, where he distinguished himself for diligence in his studies and for uprightness of conduct. He rejoined his father at Calcutta on September 19, 1822. He was reported as qualified for the public service in June of the following year, and was appointed Assistant Registrar of the Court of Sudder Adawlut at Calcutta in December. From the time he left College he assiduously applied himself to the study of Muhammadan Law, to which he had taken a great liking; and the examiners, in awarding him an honorarium for * proficiency in this subject, passed a very high eulogium on

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his attainments both in it and in the Persian language. In 1826 he was appointed acting Judge of the Jungle Mehals. He was, however, compelled, after a very brief term of service, to return to England in the following year owing to ill-health.

After a pleasant furlough in his native land of two years' duration, he came back again to Calcutta, where he landed a second time on November 13, 1828. During his stay in England, he became attached to Miss Maynard Eliza Grant, the eldest daughter of Mr. J. W. Grant, of his own service, better known in Scotland as the Laird of Elchies near Elgin. He was married to her on February 18, 1829, and they lived together in happy union of heart for rather more than ten years. After his marriage, he remained some three years in Calcutta in various offices, chiefly connected with the Secretariat. He was thus gaining an intimate acquaintance with the principles of the Indian Government and with the official discharge of ministerial duty; but it was certainly fortunate for the country that he did not remain for any lengthened period at the capital, as he would thereby have lost the knowledge of the people and of their habits and wants which can only be thoroughly obtained by immediate contact with them in the practical work of a revenue officer. During this time he served on the General Committee of Public Instruction which had been then formed in Calcutta, and in which he first acquired his interest in the education of the people that afterwards grew into his own more extended schemes in this direction. He performed the responsible duties of the Secretariat so well that, on his leaving, Sir Charles Metcalfe, who was the Vice-President in Council, publicly gave him the cordial approbation and thanks of the Government.

On September 18, 1832, Mr. Thomason was appointed Collector of Azamgarh, a district in the Benares division bordering on Oude. This district is situated in the valley of the Ganges on a gently sloping plain, through which flows the river Gogra on its way from the Himalayas to the Gan-.

ges. It is almost completely level, and its principal feature is its numerous tanks and jhils. In those days it was rather larger than at present, a new district having subsequently been formed out of it. It was quite an agricultural district, eighty per cent. of its inhabitants being cultivators, and the chief crop was paddy. It had been acquired by treaty from the Nawab of Oude in 1801, some thirty years before Mr. Thomason went there, and, with the exception of one pargunna which had been permanently assessed, it was under the same loose and undefined land settlement as the rest of the North Western Provinces. The Revenue Survey was about to be introduced, to be followed by a careful assessment of revenue, so that Mr. Thomason had before him abundance of congenial work, which would give him much experience in the multifarious duties of a Collector, and bring him in continual contact with the people. His head-quarters were at the town of Azamgarh, the capital of the district, on the banks of the river Tons, eighty-one miles north of Benares; and here he had a happy and a hospitable home for the next four years and a half. To this time he always looked back in after years with pleasurable remembrance.

Mr Thomason threw himself heartily into the duties preparatory to the new settlement and assessment. He was constantly out in the district, and it was his happiness to be supported and considerably helped by men like Mr., afterwards Sir, Robert Montgomery and Mr. Henry Carre Tucker, who afterwards earned for themselves distinguished places among our Anglo-Indian administrators. Carefully prepared instructions were drawn up for the guidance of his European assistants and of his Tahsildars and other officials with a view to the great work of survey and assessment. Disputes regarding the boundaries of villages and individual holdings had to be adjusted, and abundant opportunities were given him of observing the wants and wishes of the simple agricultural folk committec. to his charge. He was always more the Collector than the - Magistrate, although both offices were combined in his ap

pointment. The assessment, when it was at last fixed, was higher than the standard which was adopted in later times; but the increased prosperity of the district and the increase of cultivation in it proved that it was equitable and fair. His Settlement Report, when completed, met with the full approbation of Government, and the Board of Revenue, in submitting it, expressed "their sense of obligation to Mr. Thomason, who had heartily entered into their views, perfectly comprehended their plans, and carried them into execution with great skill and judgment."

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Mr. Thomason's services, the value of which had been brought into prominent relief by the ability of his administration of Azamgarh, were highly appreciated not only by Sir Charles Metcalfe, then Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, but also by Lord Auckland, the Governor-General. The latter writing to the former about this time, mentioned him in the following complimentary terms: "Mr. Thomason, whom I have wanted for the Law Commission, whom Mangles wants for every Commissionership that is vacant, and whom you probably want for much else." But he was no place-hunter. He sought for no higher appointment, and evidently refused some that were offered him, and stuck faithfully to Azamgarh until the arduous duties of the settlement were concluded. may here be mentioned that Sir Charles Metcalfe, while he approved of the great principles on which the settlement of the whole North-Western Provinces was based, was of opinion that there was too great a desire for accurate survey, or, as he jocularly expressed it, for "looking at everything through a theodolite." He was a strong advocate for the maintenance of the Village-communities; but, while protecting them from external aggression, would have left their internal arrangements as much as possible to themselves. Recognizing, however, Mr. Thomason's ability and zeal, he selected him, in March, 1837, to act as Secretary to the Government of the North-Western Provinces in the Judicial and Revenue Departments. Within a year, however, Mr. Thomason was obliged by domestic,

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