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1000 citizens, there being no other in that neighbourhood, nor for a considerable distance around. The construction of the houses, (or tenements of land, as they are called) in the old town, does not admit of the erection of those useful appendages, water-closets, or latrine Furice, or commodités publiques, ought therefore to be erected in every lane. Not a single additional one, however, has yet appeared. The Magistrae who shall first apply himself to the removing of this evil, -so injurious to the health and comfort of the inhabitants of the old city, -will deserve well of the community at large. A tenth part only of the money disbursed of late years on the Police of the city, judiciously applied to this purpose, would have tended greatly to the lessening of the grie

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Gentlemen of the College of FORT-
WILLIAM,

IN addressing a body constituted as you are, I have to regret, that the course of my pursuits and occupations has not led to those attainments, which can enable me to form a personal judgment on the interesting objects which are peculiarly connected with the solemnities of the present day, much less to bring into this chair the authority of the distinguished and accomplished person who lately filled it. In the delicate and scrupulous office, however, of distributing the honours and rewards, which are annually assigned to talents, application, and conduct in this place, I have felt no diffidence, and I shall feel none in performing the

remaining duties of the day, by observing on the progressive success of this institution, both in its immediate and peculiar functions for the instruction of youth, and in its more general tendency to promote the improvement and extension of oriental literature; I feel no distrust, I say, in the execution of duties so foreign to my personal habits and acquirements, because my own deficient judgment has been guided by that of learned and honourable men, whose enlightened testimonies, I know, cannot mislead me. Speaking, therefore, no longer in my individual character, but as I ought, and as I am about to do, in that of the high office which I have the honour to bear, I rest on the firm and secure ground which ought to be the foundation of every act and of every sentiment issuing from such offices; I mean, the collected wisdom, knowledge, and discernment, of those who are qualified, by their station and by personal endowments, to aid me with their counsel.

Supported, therefore, by such authority, I am happy to commence my first discourse from this scat, by congratulating the College and the public, on the satisfactory and honorable proofs afforded in the present examination, of the growing advantages derived from this institution, and of the progress continually making towards the accomplishment of its important ends.

These gratifying results are evinced, both by the proficiency of the Students in the different branches of learning which, they have cultivated, and in the valuable additions which have been made to the general stock of Eastern literature, by the learned labours, as well of able men attached to the College, as of other studious persons who drink at the same spring.

If a comparison were drawn between the present year and the three preceding, the result would be extremely advantageous to the latter period; and would justify, on clear

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and satisfactory grounds, the assertion which I am happy to think myself warranted in making, that the College of Fort William is advancing in a course of sensible improvement. But as the number of years we should have to review might render the argument somewhat complicated, and as a parallel between the present and the last preceding year will yield the same conclusion, I shall content myself with a few observations on that view of the subject.

The first indication of progress which I have the satisfaction to remark in the present year, compared with the preceding, is, that a greater number of Students have been found sufficiently proficient in the Oriental languages to quit College, and to enter on the duties of the Service. Twenty names have been reported this year competent to the functions of Public business. The number which the examination of the preceding year furnished to the Service was fifteen.

I observe, also, with satisfaction, that the number of Students who have presented themselves for examination in the Persian language, has considerably increased. At the former examination the number was fifteen; it is now twenty-seven.

In the preceding year three Students had attained a sufficient eminence in the knowledge of Persian to be ranked in the First Class.

In the present year that number of eminent Persian Scholars is doubled.

In the former year, five were placed in the Second Class.

In the present, nine have attained the same degree of proficiency; and in the present year the same number are found in the two superior Classes, as occupied three at the former examination.

It is also worthy of remark, as denoting, either improvement in the mode of instruction, or increased application in the Students, but indicating, either way, in effect, a very sa

tisfactory progress in the Institution itself, that a competence in the Collegiate Studies, qualifying the Student for the Public Service, was found to have been obtained this year in a period considerably shorter than appeared to have been the case at the former examination.

Of the fifteen Gentlemen who were qualified to leave College in January 1807, three only had attended College less than two years.

Of the twenty who are this year qualified for the service, ten have attained that proficiency in a shorter period than two years.

Last year the longest period of study was two years and eleven months. This year the longest period has been two years and five months.

The shortest period at the former examination was one year and three months.

The shortest of this year has been so little as four months, and there is another example of five.

These latter instances indeed of extraordinary and successful application to studies, the difficulties of which have been acknowledged by the most able and the most diligent, should rather be ascribed, no doubt, to the extraordinary efforts and abilities of the individuals to whom I allude, and whom I shall not easily forget to name in their proper place, with the honour that is due to them, than adduced as a fair argument of superiority in the particular period that has happened to produce them, But, in truth, we are entitled on a general comparative a'verage of time, at the two examinations, to claim a sensible progress in the success of this College during the last twelve months.

It is impossible, in this place, not to remark, that the progress of this year, which I have just established, bears a strong testimony to the wisdom of a very material alteration which has been made, since the Examination of 1807, in the rules which for

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merly prevailed respecting the period of attendance on the College of Fort William prescribed to the Students. The whole of the Junior Civil Servants were formerly attached to the College during a fixed period of three years. The alteration to which I allude was made by Section XII. Regulation III. 1807, which rescinded the former rule, and provides" that "their continuance in College will "henceforward be regulated by their "proficiency;" and it is added, that "the Patron and Visitor will deter"mine, from the reports of proficiency "made to him after the public Exa"minations, when the Students may be "permitted to quit the College, as "having completed the prescribed course of Study."

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After the system which now subsists for the Education of the Company's Junior Servants, was adopted; that is to say, when provision was made in England by instituting the College at Hertford, for the more general branches of instruction, and for an elementary and preparatory introduction to Eastern learning, and when the studies to be pursued at the College of Fort William were limited to the languages of Asia, and to the Laws and Regulations of this Presidency, it became unnecessary to detain the young men destined for the public service, in a state of inaction, during a period which, having been fixed in contemplation of a more extended course of study, would not have been too long for the completion of such a plan, but ceased to be requisite for the contracted and supplementary course reserved for this College. The competence of the Student for the business of India, is now the reasonable measure of his confinement to College, and its protraction beyond that point, becomes unprofitable to the public, and, speaking generally, detrimental to the individual.

In these respects, therefore, the alteration was salutary; but it was conMarch 1809.

ducive also to another most desirable end; for, by supplying a powerful inducement to diligence and exertion, it infused into the studies of the College that ardour and activity, which a distant and a fixed period of emancipation must have tended to damp and repress. The two causes appear, accordingly, to have produced their corresponding effects; and the efficiency of the new regulation, in animating the studious efforts of our young Brethren, has been signally manifested on this first occasion, when the test of experience could be applied to it. I think it on that account my duty to declare, that the sense I entertain of its importance will ensure on my part an impartial and inflexible execution of this beneficial rule.

The period of attendance on College, and that of entering on the great theatre of life, will be regulated, therefore, by the proficiency of each indi vidual in the studies prescribed to him. Those whose diligence may have abridged the term of restraint, will not only enjoy sooner the fruit of their labour, but even the sweets of liberty will be enhanced by honour, and they will carry into their new condition, the reputation and distinction which their former merits had obtained.

I refrain from the more ungracious delineation of the opposite consequences, which must accompany the slow entrance of those into the world, whot may have permitted a succession of juniors to pass before them, and who will have to endure the uneasy gloom and humiliations which always attend both the consciousness and the display of inferiority. It is enough, in this place, to say, that an early or a late entrance into the service, are the first consequences of meritorious or blame. able conduct at College. There are undoubtedly other and more important points depending on the same criterion, but I shall speak of them in another part of my discourse,

I have had the satisfaction to confer degrees

degrees of nonour, and other marks of approbation and distinction, on the Gentlemen whom I am about to

name:

Mr TYTLER,
Mr COLVIN,
Mr LINDSAY,

Mr ALEXANDER,
Mr SISSON,

Mr MACNABB, and
Mr BARWELL.

The degree of honour is itself an unequivocal testimony of distinguished merit, because the statutes of the College have wisely required such proof of excellence, in those who aspire to it, as diligence and talents united can alone furnish. I am unwilling, however, to pass, unnoticed, the particular claim to distinction which each of these candidates for honour has successfully asserted.

Mr TYTLER stands in the highest class of Hindoostanee and Persian, and his name is at the head of those who have studied the vernacular language of Bengal. To eminence in two languages, and to the first place in another, his industry and capacity have enabled him to add an elementary acquaintance with a fourth; I mean the Mahratta, a language more immediately connected, indeed, with the service of other Presidencies, but no unprofitable acquisition in some departments of the public service under the government of Bengal.

Mr COLVIN has attained eminence in the Persian and Hindoostanee languages, and in the midst of those occupations, has obtained the first place, with the distinction of a Medal, in the study of Arabic.

Mr LINDSAY Occupies the first place in the first class of Persian. He is in the highest form of Hindoostanee, and is second only to Mr Colvin in Arabic. To these successful and various studies, he has added the difficult but valuable accomplishment of high proficiency in writing both the Persian and the Nagree characters. I should

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do injustice to the talents and application of Mr Lindsay, if I did not observe, that the merit of these numerous acquirements is enhanced by the short period in which he has triumphed over so many difficulties. Mr Lindsay entered College in the month of November 1806, and has entitled himself, therefore, to quit it with singular honour in the short space of a year and two months.

Mr ALEXANDER holds the second place, and stands, therefore, amongst the most eminent both in the Persian and Hindoostanee languages, having attained that distinction by the assiduous application of little more than one year and six months.

Mr SISSON and Mr MACNAB have furnished other examples of the success, which attends a diligent and vigorous exercise of talents, by rising, in a year and a half, to the first classes of the Persian and Hindoostanee languages.

And Mr BARWELL has the distinction of possessing the first place in Hindoostanee; the third in the useful language of Bengal, and the first in the Art of Nagree Writing.

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I should indulge myself in a wider field of commendation than is warranted by former practice, if I were to recite the names, and it would be no inconsiderable number, of our younger members, who have already given earnest of future eminence, and in this honourable conflict of early talents and virtues, have already seized on stations beyond their standing. But if their claims on public approbation are not yet mature for this anni. versary, do not let them imagine they are unobserved. I have a pleasure in declaring, as Patron and Visitor of this important establishment, that I keep even the youngest in my eye, and while we are gathering on this day the ripe fruit of one abundant Summer, I am happy to contemplate the fair blossom, which, on its turn, is to crown the promise of another.

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Forbearing, however, as I do, from the premature notice of good conduct, however commendable in itself, in the first stages of academical life, I should feel far short of a duty at once sacred and grateful to me, if, on this day of public testimony to merit, I should withhold from acknowledgement and applause two names, low indeed in the list of your College, but already conspicuous in the roll of its honours.

Mr CHALMER, who entered the College of Fort William but last August, has, in January, been declared to possess a competent proficiency in Persian and Hindoostanee, with elementary knowledge of Arabic. A progress so rapid and so remarkable, has required, and therefore evinces, a rare union of distinguished qualities. Labour would alone have conducted him to the same goal, but at a slower pace. Genius, unattended by industry, unstimulated by a liberal love of learning, and undirected by a steady sense of duty, might have made less progress, than ever dulness itself. But abilities and application, vigorously addressed to the discharge of duty, have opened to him the career of life almost in its dawn, and presented to him the early prospect of honour and advantage generally reserved for riper years.

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Mr SOTHEBY has, in four months study, merited the following testimonial, which I shall read in the very words with which the learned Council of the College conclude their report of those gentlemen whom they have adjudged to be qualified to leave the College, and enter on the public Service:

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report."

Every line of this passage appears to me pregnant with praise of the highest quality.

Mr SOTHEBY, it is observed, "does "not belong to this establishment.” That circumstance is a remarkable feature in Mr Sotheby's case.

The admission of Gentlemen belonging to the establishment of other Presidencies, to the College of Fort William, is not in strictness conformable to the regulations which it has pleased the Honourable Court of Directors to appoint on that subject.But the literary thirst of Mr Sotheby's eager and inquisitive mind, and the sound, well-regulated, well-directed and ingenuous ambition of his ardent character, were not to be repressed, by a general regulation, merely of convenience, made for ordinary cases, but not inflexible, as it has proved, to the individual claims of bright exceptions. Mr Sotheby, therefore, began by surmounting that obstacle, and was warmly welcomed into the very sanctuary which he violated.How well he has justified this deviation from law, and redeemed his own offence and ours, by the fruit which it has borne, the College Council has just apprized us.

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The report which I have read states, "that Mr Sotheby, having attained high proficiency in the Hindoosta"nee, and considerable proficiency in "the Persian and Mahratta langua"ges, appears to be fully competent. "to enter on the public service."

As the attainments thus reported by the College Council were made in the short space of four months, and exceed so far the usual atchievements of industry and capacity as to wear almost an air of fable and prodigy, no higher testimony could be borne to those qualities, and to the signal and remarkable degree in which Mr So theby possesses them, than the report

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