Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/465

 10

s. xii. NOV. is, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

381

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1909.

CONTENTS. No. 307.

NOTES : Gabriel Boughton : William Hamilton, 331 Legal References in Shakespeare, 382 William Wynne Ryland and his Family" The Antiquary's Books," 383 "Millet" Messrs. Lares & Penates Adam Smith's Status at Oxford, 384 Cabriolet : Mr. Pickwick Judge Jeffreys's House in Westminster Blackstone's ' Commen- taries,' 385 Francis Kindlemarsh Arden Family "Fish in troubled waters," 386.

QUERIES : Clim of the Clough, 386 Mildew in Books - Canning on "Toby Philpot " Cire-perdue Process "Adoxography" Basil Goode Dr. L. Womack, 387 Lambpark Filberts St. Bernard Dogs Rev. H. Morris, 1640 Parish Registers before 1538 Yew in Poetry 41 Lie" in Scotch Documents, 388 Davies's Epigram on Actors Betubium'Le Livre'and Casanova Polwhele's 1 History of Cornwall ' Thurlby Family, 389.

REPLIES :-Gray's ' Elegy ' and Ploughing Customs, 389- Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Last Words, 391' ' Tackle-porter " An Early Crusoe Tommy Short on Aristotle, 392 'D.N.B. Epitome* Spanish Armada Wrecks Roman Legions, 393 Caxton's Birthplace, 394 Elizabeth of Bohemia Hartwell, Bucks, 395 Authors Wanted Fig Trees in London Cernet's Tower in Bucklersbury, 393 Alvary : Auveray Statue of Charles L Paramor Family, 397 old Names of Apples Sir T. Janssen Inverness Bibliography "Tailed" in Fuller, 398.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Isaac Taylor's 'Words and Places' ' Charles James Fox ' Cambridge County Geographies Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

OABRIEL BOUGHTON : WILLIAM HAMILTON.

MORE than twenty years ago (7 S. v. 149) a correspondent sought for particulars regard- ing Gabriel Boughton and William Hamilton, both of whom were surgeons in the service of the old East India Company, and occupied places of some distinction in the early history of British India. No reply seems to have been made to this inquiry. So little, indeed, was known of the romantic careers of either of these distinguished men that, probably for lack of material, neither has found a niche in the ' Dictionary of National Biography.'

To The Edinburgh Medical Journal for April, 1907, Dr. Andrew Cassels Brown contributed a very interesting and valuable .sketch of the lives of Boughton and Hamil- ton, under the title of ' Two Forgotten Medical Worthies.' The account of Hamilton is founded on a paper contributed to The Calcutta Review for April, 1903, by the late

Mr. C. R. Wilson of Calcutta, under the heading of 'The Personal History of Dr. William Hamilton, Benefactor of Calcutta ' ; and it is not probable that materials exist for a fuller memoir. Hamilton was an able, generous, and patriotic officer, and the medical profession may well be proud of him.

Not less honourable are the claims of Gabriel Boughton to the gratitude of posterity. The memoir given of him by Dr. Brown is in the main correct, but it has been very skilfully amplified by Lieut. -Col. D. G. Crawford, M.B., of the Indian Medical Service, and Civil Surgeon of Hugli, in a paper contributed by him to The Indian Medical Gazette for January, 1909, under the title of ' The Legend of Gabriel Boughton.' Col. Crawford has explored every available source of information, and the result is a very illuminative record of the career of one who took a leading part in the founding of the British raj in India.

The legend, as those interested in India are generally aware, is that Gabriel Boughton, then surgeon of the Hopewell, was sent for to attend the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan, who had been badly burnt ; that he was successful in effecting a cure ; and that, when desired to name his own reward, he asked for and obtained liberty for his masters, the Company, to trade in Bengal, after which the first settlement of the East India Company in Bengal was founded. The earliest book in which this legend is given at length seems to have been Stewart's 1813 ; but a good deal will be found about Boughton in Yule's notes to ' The Diary of William Hedges,' which was issued by the Hakluyt Society in three volumes in 1887, 1888, and 1889.
 * History of Bengal,' which was published in

Col. Crawford has examined these and other authorities with great care and patience, and the conclusion at which he arrives is that

" there appears to be no foundation whatever for the legend that Boughton cured the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan, when she was accidentally burned. There is no authority for the statement that he obtained a farman, or grant, in favour of the Company, from the Emperor. But it is certain that Gabriel Boughton really existed ; that he was surgeon of the Hopewell ; that he was sent from Surat to Agra, to Shah Jehari's court, about the early part of 1645; that he went 011 to Bengal, and was a member of Shah Shuja's retinue at his court at Rajmahal, between 1645 and 1650; and that he died in India before the end of 1656. That he got a farman from Shah Shuja in favour of the Company seems also practically certain."