13S Royal Sorie/j/. 



political interests and relations of all the various nations who com- 

 pose or border upon our Indian Empire. 



Sir John Malcolm returned to England in 1822 : in 1827 he was 

 appointed Governor of Bombay and Central India. He retained this 

 important situation for three years, when he was recalled for the 

 purpose of taking part in the discussions which were likely to arise 

 upon the renewal of the East India Company's Charter. He was 

 shortly after his return elected Member of Parliament for Launceston ; 

 but the questions which almost entirely absorbed the attention of 

 Parliament and of the public at that period were not calculated for 

 the favourable display of his peculiar powers. His last public ad- 

 dress was made at a meeting in London in honour of his illustrious 

 countryman Sir Walter Scott, of whose genius and writings he was 

 an enthusiastic admirer : on the following day he was attacked by 

 paralysis, from which he never recovered ; and he died at his house 

 in London on the 31st day of May last. 



Sir John Malcolm was tall and commanding in his person ; his 

 manners were remarkably free and unconstrained, and his conver- 

 sation rapid and animated ; and notwithstanding his long and inti- 

 mate intercourse and association with Oriental people and Oriental 

 languages and with scenes of life altogether different from those in 

 which his earlier boyhood had been passed, yet he continued to speak 

 with the accent of his countrymen, and to remember their national 

 traditions with all the vividness and to recite their national poetry 

 with all the enthusiasm, which characterize our earliest and deepest 

 impressions. As a father, a husband and a brother he was emi- 

 nently kind and affectionate ; and few persons have been more gene- 

 rally beloved by their friends for their social virtues, or more re- 

 spected and revered for their great talents and attainments and for 

 their eminent public services. 



I observe with pleasure that a monument, from the chisel of Mr. 

 Chantrey, is to be erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, for 

 which ample funds have been provided by the almost spontaneous 

 contributions of his friends ; and it is worthy of remark that amongst 

 the subscribers is to be found the name of an Eastern Potentate, the 

 Pacha of Egypt, the founder of a great empire, and still more di- 

 stinguished for his triumphs over Eastern prejudices, who became 

 acquainted with Sir John Malcolm upon his return from Bombay, 

 and who has most gladly availed himself of this opportunity of ex- 

 pressing his respect for the memory of his friend. 



Mr. William Morgan was the author of several papers in our 

 Transactions, chiefly upon the subject of the value of reversions 

 contingent upon different cases of survivorship. For two of these 

 papers, printed in 1788 and 1789, he received the Copley Medal. 

 He was one of the first authors who rejected altogether the hy- 

 pothesis of the equal decrements of life which had been introduced 

 by De Moivre, partly from the want of correct tables, and partly for 

 the purpose of simplifying the formulae employed in the calculation 

 of contingent reversions ; and he showed in what manner such ques- 

 tions could be practically solved with reference to the real proba- 



