А BKETOH OF THE LIFE 
Or 
Francis Hamilton (one Buchanan), 
SOME TIME 
SUPERINTENDENT OF THE HONOURABLE COMPANY'S BOTANIC 
GARDEN AT CALCUTTA. 
ыштар; 
1. INTRODUCTORY. 
In these Annals Sir George King has already published A skort account of Colonel 
Kyd, the founder of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta" to whose care this institution 
was committed from its origin in 1786 till his death in 1793. This was followed by 
A Brief Memoir of William Foxburgh, Author of the Flora Indica? who succeeded 
Lieutenant-Colonel Куй and was Superintendent till 1814. In continuation of the 
series of sketches thus initiated the writer proposes to give here an outline of the 
career of Dr. Francis Buchanan (subsequently Hamilton) who was Superintendent of 
this garden, as successor to Dr. Roxburgh, for a brief period in 1814-15, 
Notices of Buchanan Hamilton, of various degrees of merit, are to be found in 
Chambers’ Biographies of Eminent Scctsmen, in the Dictionary of National Biography, in 
Higginbotham’s Men India has known, in Anderson’s Scottish Nation, in Britten and 
Boulger’s Biographical Inder, and in the Calcutta Review for July 1894. The basis of 
most of these articles has, however, been an incidental account, by Buchanan himself, 
in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh? of his service in India; the 
Indian portion of Buchanan's career is therefore easily followed. 
As regards, however, Buchanan's career before entering the service of the East 
India Company and as regards his life after retiring from India, the majority of his 
biographers have apparently found it difficult to obtain facts and have been content 
at times to substitute surmises, without always clearly indicating the statements that 
are merely surmises. 
In the Library of the Royal Botanic Garden at Calcutta are preserved many 
letters, written during his Indian career by Buchanan to his friend and predecessor 
1 Annals of the Royal Botanie Garden, Calcutta, vol, iv. 
3 vol. у. 
itto to 
3 Vol. x., р. 171, (read June 18, 1821). 
