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 CHAPTER IV

Career in India

In the year 1822, when James Thomason landed in India as a servant of the East India Company, the long proconsulate of the Marquess of Hastings was about to give place to that of the Earl of Amherst. He was doubtless able to remember the India of his childhood, which he had quitted some eight years previously. But all this while a transition stage was in progress. In 1808, when Thomas Thomason the father reached Calcutta, the Empire had not been fully established. Calcutta was the chief centre of authority, but had not yet grown to the status of a real metropolis. But in 1822, when James Thomason the son arrived as a civil servant, the Indian Empire, though not so fully developed as it is now, was yet in essentials established. The Bengal Presidency stretched uninterruptedly from the mouth of the Húghlí to the north-west frontier beyond Delhi, 1500 miles distant. Nothing separated her from the other two Presidencies except either British territory or Native States, the allies and feudatories of the East India Company. The Pax Romana or Britannica had been for the most part settled. The