Page:List of inscriptions on tombs or monuments in Bengal.pdf/8

2 Serial Number

Year of death.

Tomb or monument to the memory of—

Inscription.

1 2 3 4 5 23 Dec. 1841.

Sir William Hay Macnaghten, Bart.—concluded.

action by high and generous impulses, alike conducive to good and great results and to honourable distinction: thus, that character became developed, whose excellence, acknowledged without dissent, was regarded without envy, from the mode sty which embellished it. Entrusted during a long course of arduous service with confidential authority, he advanced the reputation he had early established: until, whilst Envoy at the Court of Cabul, honoured his Sovereign; and on the eve of assuming the Government of Bombay; his bright career his of earthly usefulness was arrested. Revolt had burst forth upon the land: and on the 23rd day of December 1841, in the summer of his manhood and his fortunes, in the forty-eighth year of his age, he fell by the hand of an assassin. His public acts will be found recorded in the annals of his country: this memorial is the last tribute permitted to private friendship.

whom on each side is seen the figure of a crouching lion. To the right is a Hindu with the fingers of his left hand in the lion's name; to the left is a Mussulman with his right leg crossed in front of his left, his right knee resting on the lion's head. Above the tablet is Macnaghby ten's coat of arms with motto, "Hope in God." The whole is surmounted by a figure of Macnaghten in relief, seated in a chair, and turned towards the right of the spectator.

See also the inscription on his tomb in the Lower Circular Road Cemetery.

3.

19 April 1848.

Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew, B.C.S., and Wilham Anderson.

Not near this stone, nor in any consecrated ground, but on the extreme frontier of the British Indian Empire, lie the remains of PATRICK ALEXANDER VANS AGNEW, of the Bengal Civil Service, and WILLIAM ANDERSON, Lieutenant, 1st Bombay Fusilier Regiment, Assistants to the Resident at Lahore; who being deputed by the Grovernment to relieve, at his own request, Dewan Mcolraj, Viceroy of Multan, of the fortress and authority which he held, were attacked and wounded by the Garrison, on the 19th April 1848, and being treacherously deserted by the Sikh escort, were on the following day, in flagrant breach of national faith and hospitality, barbarously murdered in the Edgah, under the Walls of Multan. Thus fell these two young public servants at the age of 25 and 28 years, full of high hopes, rare talents, and promise of future usefulness; even in their deaths doing their country honour: wounded and forsaken they could offer no resistance; but hand in hand calmly awaited the onset of their assailants; nobly they refused to yield, foretelling the day when thousands of Englishmen should come to avenge their death, and destroy Moolraj, his army and fortress. History records how the prediction was fulfilled. They were buried with Military Honours on the summit of the captured citadel on the 26th January 1849.

The annexation of the Punjab to the British Empire was the result of the war, of which their assassination was the commencement. The Assistants to the Resident at Lahore have erected this monument to the memory of their friends.

A mural tablet.

There is a tablet to the memory of Vans Agnew and Anderson in the Idgah at Multan. Their bodies were buried not far from the mausoleum of Bahawal Hak. The spot is marked by an obelisk 50 feet high. It bears the same inscription as here, except that the opening words are "Beneath this monument lie the remains."

The inscription is said to have been written by Lord Macaulay.