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↑ Up one levelHistorical and Comparative Analysis of the Finances of Bengal
Identity area
Reference code
GB 891 GCH-GCH/1
Publication status
Published
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
4 volumes
Date(s)
- 1765 - 1787 (Creation)
Context area
Name of creator
(1762-1824)
Biographical history
Alexander Hamilton (1762-1824) was one of the first Europeans to study Sanskrit. Hamilton joined the East India Company and arrived in India in 1783. He joined the Asiatic Society of Bengal founded by William Jones. Hamilton returned to Europe around 1797 and went to France after the Treaty of Amiens (1802) to collate Sanskrit manuscripts held at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. When war broke out between Britain and France in 1803 Hamilton was interned as an enemy alien, but was released to carry on his researches at the insistence of the French scholar Constantine Volney. Hamilton taught Sanskrit to Volney and others, including Friedrich Schlegel and Jean-Louis Burnouf, the father of Eugene Burnouf. Hamilton spent most of his time compiling a catalogue of Indian manuscripts in the library which was published in 1807. Hamilton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1808 and became professor of Sanscrit and Hindoo literature at Haileybury College. He died at Liscard on 30 December 1824.
(1788-1849)
Biographical history
Graves Chamney Haughton (1788-1849) was educated in England before travelling to India in 1808 with the East India Company. He became proficient in Hindustani, studying at Fort William College. He returned to England in 1815 and in 1817 was appointed assistant professor at Haileybury College and held the post of professor of Sanskrit and Bengali from 1819 to 1827. He was supported by various prominent academics when he attempted in 1832 to be elected as the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University but he stood down in favour of Horace Hayman Wilson. He was a founding member of the Royal Asiatic Society and served as its Librarian from 1831-1837. He died of cholera in Paris on 28 August 1849.
Repository
Royal Asiatic Society Archives
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Four volumes by Hamilton and Haughton which are concerned with the Finances of Bengal and were compiled for the East India Company. Each consists of handwritten manuscripts bound into leather volumes which seem to have been produced consecutively. All were presented to the Royal Asiatic Society by Sir Graves Haughton on 1 April 1837. The four volumes are:
* "Historical and Comparative Analysis of the Finances of Bengal chronologically arranged in different periods, from the Moghul Conquest to the Present time, extracted from a political survey of the British Dominions and tributary dependencies in India", beginning with an introduction and covering the first two periods
* Same title as above, but covering the third period. Preceding this manuscript in the same volume is an accompanying letter to the Right Honorable Charles Earl Cornwallis in December 1786, and another letter to Edward Hay asking him to deliver the manuscripts to the EIC board, signed J. G., dated 8 December 1786
* "Historical & Comparative view of the Revenues of Bengal... A.D.1765-1784", which also includes a letter to the Right Honorable Charles Earl Cornwallis to accompany the report, dated 28 February 1788
* "Supplement to the Historical and Comparative Analysis of the finances of Bengal...containing a similar disquisition on the revenue of the dependent Dominions of Soubah Behar, Chuckleh Midnapore in Orissa and the Zamindary of Benares in the Soubah of Allahabad, Calcutta, June 30th 1787".
Conditions of access and use area
Language of material
- English
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