Page:Henry Derozio, the Eurasian, poet, teacher, and journalist. With appendices (IA henryderozioeura00edwarich).pdf/12

 from being sent to England for education, to the Viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, when the Forest School of Dehra and the Roorkee Engineering College were closed against the sons of Englishmen domiciled in India. Eurasians are the descendants of native mothers by European fathers, of every nationality, and, as a community, they have cast in their lot, since the days of Albuquerque, with the race to which their fathers belonged. The Dutch, Portuguese, French, and English, who each in turn fought for the mastery of India, left behind them descendants whose history as communities in no way differs from that of their fathers. There have been, however, men of some mark among them, whose names are not as well known as they deserve to be, and I set about collecting materials for a series of biographies, which would in some fashion picture the men and their surroundings. The individuals with whom I mainly concerned myself were Derozio, Skinner, of the Irregulars, Kidd, the ship-builder, and Ricketts, the contemporary of Derozio and the founder of what is now the Doveton College. This Memoir of Derozio is the first of the series, and, so far as I am concerned, it is likely to be the last. The English reading public of India who buy books is a very small public, and it is very doubtful if any book published in India by a private person ever did more than pay the printing charges; of course, I except what are called "text-books," which are