88 Mcnnorial of George Brown Goode. 



A remark significant in this connection may be found in a letter 

 written by Edward Cutbush, M. D. , dated Geneva, New York, January 20, 

 1842, accepting his election to corresponding membership in the National 

 Institution. After thanking the institution ' ' for this memento of their 

 friendship and recognition of past services in the cause which has been 

 so honorably revived at the seat of Government, ' ' he continued thus: ' ' I 

 most sincerely hope that all the objects which engaged the attention of 

 Thomas Law, Esq.," and myself, in 18 16, in establishing the Columbian 

 Institute will now meet the approbation and support of the Government, 

 and of the scientific men of the District of Columbia. ' ' ' 



'Proceedings of the National Institution, 1842, 2d Bull., p. 156. 



= Thomas Law was a member of an English family of talent and influence. His 

 father, Edmund Law, D. D., born in Cartmel, Lancashire, in 1703, educated at St. 

 John's College, Cambridge, was author of several theological and philosophical works, 

 and in 1769 became Bishop of Carlisle, holding this office till his death in 1787. Of 

 his younger brothers, one was Bishop of Elphin, another, George Henry Law, D. D., 

 (1761-1845) was Bishop of Chester, 1812, and later, 1824, of Bath and Wells. [Bio- 

 graphical Sketch in Gentleman's Magazine, 1845, Pt. 2, p. 529.] His elder brother, 

 Edward Law — Lord Ellenborotigh — (1750-1818) was an eminent lawyer, principal 

 counsel for Warren Hastings in the great impeachment trial before the House of 

 Lords, Attorney-General and Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and was father 

 of Edward Law, Earl of Ellenborough (1790-1871), Governor-General of India. 



Thomas Law was born in 1756, and in 1773, at the age of seventeen, entered the 

 service of the British East India Company in Bengal, and was rapidly promoted, 

 becoming member of the revenue board of Hugli before he was twenty-one, later 

 judge of Poonah, and in 1783 collector, judge, and magistrate of Behar, a province 

 with more than 2,000,000 inhabitants, an office which he administered for six years 

 with great success, afterwards, at the request of Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-Gen- 

 eral, then engaged in his campaign against Tippoo Saib, serving for two years on the 

 revenue board at Calcutta. In 1791, his health having failed, he sailed for England, 

 where he remained until 1793, the year of his removal to America. 



While in India he was the friend and associate of Lord Cornwallis, Lord Tergue- 

 nett, and Sir William Jones, and was the author of what was known as the Mocur- 

 rery system and permanent settlement, a great legislative reform, the accomplishment 

 of which was the principal feature of Cornwallis's administration, which the board 

 of control of the East India Company described as "forming a new epoch in Hin- 

 dostan, from which, they predict, will be derived security and permanent prosperity, 

 and consider it as an important and most beneficial change to 50,000,000 of people, 

 and full of beneficial consequences. ' ' 



William Duane, the editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, who had known Mr. Law 

 in India, wrote thus concerning him in 1815: 



' ' We have known Mr. Law now more than thirty years. We knew him when he 

 was inferior to no man in eminence and in power, the third or fourth in degree in a 

 great empire; and this was at a time, too, when, by his own generous efforts, pursued 

 with zeal and talent that commanded general admiration and esteem, he brought 

 about a revolution, the influence of which now extends to one hundred and twenty 

 millions of people, as great in its moral and political influences as the extinction of 

 the feudal system. In Hindostan, under the Mogul government, the tenure of land 

 was in the Empire and reverted upon the demise of the holder. The afflictions pro- 

 duced by such a system can not be conceived by those who have not been eye-wit- 

 nesses of them. Upon the death of a zuinndar, or landholder, where polygamy 



