Page:A General Biography of Bengal Celebrities Vol 1.djvu/19

 10 LIFE OF RAJA DEGUMBER MITTEH, CHAPTER III. HIS CHARACTER AND IDEAS.

Kristo Das, who had a splendid opportunity to study his friend's character both as a private and public man, wrote as follows:—

"As an example of his boldness and firmness we might mention the movement he made almost alone and unassisted against Mr, Latour, the then judge of 24 Pergunnahas, for his judicial bias. Others would have shrunk from such a hazardous task, but nothing daunted he impeached the Judge before government in an ably drawn up memorial. He had fixed ideas on almost every public question. For instance, while the educated natives were to a man opposed to the annexation policy of Lord Dalhousie, he supported it, because he had no faith in the Native princes, and no sympathy for the cry of Native Government as a national institution.

He was a thorough-going utilitarian, and made the greatest good of the greatest number his motto, and as he felt that the British Government followed that principle, he considered the substitution of that Government for a Native administration tantamount to the redemption of a whole population. His sympathies were republican, but at the same time he did not care much for representative institutions in this country.

In this respect, he was often at variance with his educated countrymen. In matters of religion and social intercourse he was catholic and cosmopolitan in his views. To him the old Hindoo and Mahomedan, the Christian convert, the Brahmo, and the England-returned Indians were equally welcome. His sympathies were, however, entirely conservative on the subject of female emancipation and improvement,"