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22 he was attached before the close of 1826 as an Assistant to Mr. (later Sir William) Macnaghten, the Registrar at that time of the Company's chief Court of Appeal in Calcutta, with whose name his own was to become closely associated. In the following year, on May 10, 1827, little more than twelve months after his arrival in India, when a few days under twenty, he married. To his father, and probably to his friends, it seemed too early; but life-long happiness proved the soundness of his judgment. His wife was Emma Sophia, a daughter of the Reverend Wetenhall Sneyd, at that time Vicar of Newchurch, in the Isle of Wight. When Mr. Colvin met her, she was living with her brother. Major Henry Sneyd, Commandant of the Governor-General's Bodyguard. She survived her husband many years, dying in July 1882, at the age of seventy-five; full of years, and happy in all that should accompany old age.

After serving an apprenticeship in the Bengal Province of Cuttack and in the Muhammadan State of Haidarábád in the Deccan, Mr. Colvin found himself again in 1830 in Calcutta, where he filled subordinate posts in the secretariat offices, till in 1835 he was made Secretary to the Bengal Board of Revenue. He had meanwhile been deputed to inquire into an outbreak of Wahábí fanaticism at Bárásat, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta; and had distinguished himself, as a member of the Educational Committee, in the ranks of those who under the guidance of Macaulay were endeavouring to displace Oriental in favour of