15 - Jones Today

Summary

Jones's death was a catastrophe that “spread a gloom over the public mind in India, Native as well as European; and was deplored by none of his friends more deeply, both on public and private accounts, than by the Governor-General.” As Shore wrote his wife, “At my durbar yesterday I had proofs of the affection entertained by the natives for Sir William Jones. The Professors of the Hindu Law, who were in the habit of attendance upon him, burst into unrestrained tears when they spoke to me, and grief clouded many countenances. His death is really a national loss.”

Many such testimonies could be mustered to demonstrate the high regard in which Jones was held by the Indian intelligentsia and even the common people of Calcutta. When this regard is compared with the attitude of other conquered peoples (e.g., the Aztecs' view of Cortes), it is clear that Jones used his office quite differently from the way other Europeans did, and that the governed people loved him for his efforts on their behalf. Simultaneously, he earned the equally high regard of the West for his achievements in India, and at his death was renowned in the West not for his colonial administrative actions but for the intellectual distinctions earned primarily in his spare time from his judicial duties. This dual exaltation makes him almost unique among the many notable individuals who have served in such administrative capacities.