Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/177

Duncan of those rural swains who lived in idyllic simplicity.'

 DUNCAN, JONATHAN, the elder (1756–1811), governor of Bombay, son of Alexander Duucan, was born at Wardhouse, Forfarshire, on 15 May 1756. He received a nomination to the East India Company's civil service, and reached Calcutta in 1772. After serving in various subordinate capacities, he was selected, because of his known uprightness, to fill the important office of resident and superintendent at Benares by Lord Cornwallis in 1788. This was the situation in which most scandals had been caused by the eager desire for gain of the company's servants; Duncan put down these scandals with a strict hand, and thus made himself very unpopular with his subordinates. Yet he also found time to look into matters of native administration, and was the first resident who devoted himself to putting down the practice of infanticide at Benares. When Lord Comwallis returned to England, he did not forget to praise Duncan to the court of directors, and entirely without solicitation from himself he was appointed to the important office of governor of Bombay in 1795. He held this post for sixteen years, the most important perhaps in the whole history of the English in India. The effects of his long government are still to be seen in the present composition and administration of the Bombay presidency, for this was the period in which the company's servants were engaged in making the company the paramount power in India. Duncan went on the principle of recognising any petty chieftain, who had a right to the smallest tribute from the smallest village, as a sovereign prince. This policy accounts for the innumerable small states, nearly six hundred in number, now ruled through the Kathiáwár, Mahi Kantha, and Rewá Kantha agencies, which forms the distinguishing feature of the Bombay presidency, as distinguished from the rest of India, where only important chieftains were recognised as sovereigns, and the smaller ones treated as only hereditary zemindars. Though recognising their sovereign rights, Duncan had no hesitation in regulating the local government of these little princelets, and exerted himself especially for the suppression of infanticide in Kathiáwár. While thus occupied in local affairs, Duncan did not forget to take his full share in the great wars by which Lord Wellesley broke the power of Tippoo Sultan and the Maráthás. He equipped and sent a powerful force under Major-general James Stuart, which marched upon Mysore from the Malabar coast, and assisted in the capture of Seringapatam in 1799; he supplied troops for Sir David Baird's expedition to Egypt in 1801; he warmly seconded Major-general Arthur Wellesley in his campaign against the Maráthás in 1803; and he directed the occupation and final pacification of Guzerat and Kathiáwár by Colonel Keating's expedition in 1807. He died at Bombay on 11 Aug. 1811, and is buried in St. Thomas's Church there, where a fine monument has been erected to him. His eldest son Jonathan is noticed below.

 DUNCAN, JONATHAN, the younger (1799–1865), currency reformer, born at Bombay in 1799, was the son of Jonathan Duncan the elder [q. v.], governor of the presidency. He received his preliminary training under a private tutor named Cobbold. On 24 Jan. 1817 he was entered a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the ordinary B.A. degree in 1821 (College Register). His easy circumstances left him leisure to indulge a fondness for literature and politics. In 1836–7 he edited the first four volumes of the short-lived 'Guernsey and Jersey Magazine,' 8vo, Guernsey, London. In 1840 he published a translation of F. Bodin's 'Résumé de l'Histoire d'Angleterre,' 12mo, London. For the 'National Illustrated Library' he furnished a 'History of Russia from the foundation of the Empire by Rourick to the close of the Hungarian Wars,' 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1854, part of which is a translation from the French of A. Rabbe. After 1841 Duncan lived chiefly in London. Besides contributing to general literature, he wrote and spoke frequently on questions of reform, such as land tenure and financial matters. He disapproved of what he termed the 'silly sophisms' of Sir Robert Peel, and considered the monetary system of Samuel Jones Loyd to have been framed for the express purpose of sacrificing labour to usury. Under the signature of 'Aladdin' he wrote in 'Jerrold's Weekly News' a series of 'Letters on Monetary Science,' in which these and similar views are enunciated with considerable vehemence. The 'Letters' were afterwards republished in a collective form. In 1850 he started 'The Journal of Industry,' which collapsed after sixteen numbers had appeared.

His other writings are: 1. 'Remarks on the Legality and Expediency of Prosecutions 