9 - A Sacred Oriental Language (1785)

Summary

Jones reached Calcutta after an absence of seven months. For a time “reduced to a skeleton by fevers of every denomination, with an obstinate bilious flux at their heels,” now he felt reasonably recovered (2:666).

The political situation had changed; he personally felt the loss of Hastings. Macpherson, the senior member of the Supreme Council, was acting as Governor-General. He required officers to list their notices in the Calcutta Gazette, provoking an editorial on 3 March on freedom of the press.

During his year and a half in Bengal, Jones had fostered some cooperation between the council and the Supreme Court. Now overtures were made to Macpherson:

I always thought before I left England, that a regard for the public good required the most cordial union between the executive and judicial powers in this country; and I lamented the mischief occasioned by former divisions. Since I have no view of happiness on this side of the grave, but in a faithful discharge of my duty, I shall spare no pains to preserve that cordiality which subsists, I trust, and will subsist, between the government and the judges.

(2:668)

Citing Bacon on the need for statesmen to relieve their minds from the fatigue of business, Jones enclosed “The Enchanted Fruit,” which, he hoped, might amuse Macpherson. The composing had not been solely recreational, for a knowledge of Hindu manners was useful to a judge. Nor was Jones's allusion to statesmen accidental.