Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/253

 marches, in a burning sun, his brave wife, who shared all his anxieties, fell ill and died shortly after her arrival at Mhow. For his services during the mutiny Durand received a C.B., and was promoted to a brevet colonelcy, while Lord Canning wrote a minute in which he observed that Durand's conduct was marked by great foresight ‘and the soundest judgment as well in military as in civil matters. He had many points to guard, and the trustworthy force at his disposal was almost hopelessly small; but by a judicious use of it and by the closest personal supervision of its movements Colonel Durand saved our interests in Central India until support could arrive.’

In 1858 Durand was selected by the governor-general to collect information as to the reorganisation of the Indian armies, and then to proceed to England to lay before the royal commission the views of the Indian government on the subject, and as soon as he arrived in England he was examined at length before the commission. Early in 1859 he was appointed a member of the council of India, and for the next two years he remained in England fighting a losing battle on behalf of a local European army in India, and against the newly devised staff corps.

In the autumn of 1859 he married the widow of the Rev. Henry Polehampton, known for her devotion during the siege of Lucknow. In 1861 he accepted an offer from Lord Canning of the foreign secretaryship in India. He held this post for the remainder of Lord Canning's governorship, during the governor-generalship of Lord Elgin and Sir W. Denison, and for two years under Sir John Lawrence. In May 1865 he was appointed a member of the governor-general's council in charge of the military department, a post he held for five years. In 1867 he was promoted major-general and awarded the well-earned distinction of K.C.S.I.

Lord Mayo arrived to relieve Sir John Lawrence as viceroy in 1869, and in May 1870 he appointed Durand, with general approbation, lieutenant-governor of the Punjab. In making a tour of the frontier of his province he arrived on the last day of 1870 in the neighbourhood of Tank, and having inspected the outpost on foot he mounted an elephant and proceeded with the Tank chief beside him to visit the town. His howdah was crushed against the roof of the gateway and he was thrown to the ground, his head striking a wall. He was picked up insensible, and though he recovered consciousness, he died peacefully on 1 Jan. 1871.

Durand was a man of warm affection and great ability, gentle and courteous in manner, and deeply religious without cant or bigotry. By nature he was reserved, proud, and sensitive, frequently taking needless offence, while his strongly formed opinions, expressed in language equally strong, were apt sometimes to give offence. Lord Mayo in publicly announcing his death observed that ‘her majesty has lost a true and faithful servant, the viceroy an able and experienced comrade, the Punjab a just and energetic ruler, and the Indian service one of its brightest ornaments.’

His brother officers of the royal engineers have founded a medal in commemoration of him, which is annually bestowed by the commander-in-chief in India upon the most deserving native officer or non-commissioned officer of the Indian sappers and miners.

[Life, by H. M. Durand, 2 vols. 1883; Official and Corps Papers.] 

DURANT or DURANCE, JOHN (fl. 1660), puritan divine, was, according to Edwards's ‘Gangræna,’ apprenticed to a washing-ball maker of Lombard Street in 1641, but this seems scarcely consistent with Edwards's own story of Durant having before 1646 expressed his regret that he had spent much time in reading the Fathers. He was an independent preacher at Sandwich in 1644. A year or two later he removed to Canterbury, where he preached at first in a church and in a private room, and afterwards in the cathedral. The royalist Edwards denounces him with characteristic violence. His published works bear out Calamy's description of him as ‘an excellent practical preacher.’ They also show him to have been a man of some learning, acquainted with both Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin. After the Restoration he was ejected from Canterbury Cathedral, but of his further history nothing is known. His works are: 1. ‘Comfort and Counsell for Dejected Soules. Being the heads and sum of divers Sermons preached to a particular congregation,’ 1651, 4th ed. 1658, where the author is described as pastor of ‘a church of Christ’ in Canterbury, i.e. the cathedral. 2. ‘Sips of Sweetnesse, or Consolation for weak Beleevers,’ 1651. 3. ‘The Salvation of Saints by the appearances of Christ (1) Now in Heaven (2) Hereafter from Heaven,’ 1653. 4. ‘A Discovery of Glorious Love, or the Love of Christ to Beleevers; being the sum of VI Sermons on Ephes. iii. 19,’ preached at Sandwich eleven years before (1655). 5. ‘The Spiritual Seaman, or a Manual for Mariners, being a short tract comprehending the principal heads of Christian religion, handled in allusion to the Seaman's Compass and Observations,’ 1655; reissued, with alterations, as ‘The Christian's