1 Е ОҒ 
xxiv A SKETCH OF THE LIF 
On 18th February 1815 Hamilton replied as follows :— 
“I have been honoured with your letter of the 3lst ultimo withdrawing the permission of 
the Honourable the Vice-President in Council for sending to the Honourable Court of Directors 
such drawings of natural productions as have been made at the public expense and desiring me to 
deliver them to you, which I have accordingly done by the bearer. I hope you will have the 
goodness to return a receipt annexed to the accompanying list. I request that you will he pleased 
to represent to the Honourable the Vice-President in Council that upon examination it will, I am 
persuaded, be found that the drawings in question are little, if at all, calculated to explain the 
reports which I have delivered to Government, all of which were accompanied by such of the 
drawings made at the public expense as appeared to me likely to elucidate the subj ect. Have 
the goodness also to represent that my object in requesting that I might be permitted to present 
the drawings to the Court of Directors did not originate in a view of claiming the merit of 
making a present to the Company of its own property, but arose from a conviction that their 
being dejosited in the collection at the India house was the most probable means of rendering 
them useful to science. I am persuaded that they will be found of little use to natural history 
unless they were accompanied by the descriptions which it was my intention to have prepared ; 
but accompanied by these and open to the inspection of naturalists with the liberality shown at 
the Honourable Company’s collections they no doubt would contribute to render the Natural History 
of India more complete. While, however, I am deprived of that access to the drawings and of 
the means of elucidating my descriptions by their use, which I would have enjoyed had they been® 
deposited in the Honourable Company's collection, I shall probably be altogether deterred from 
wasting my little remaining time on the labour of descriptions, always imperfect without the 
elucidation of engravings.” 
Two days later, in a letter to Government, dated 20th February 1815, with 
which he forwarded his Statistical Report on the district of Gorakhpur, Buchanan said :— 
“I now return by the bearer the papers and drawings which were collected at the menagerie, 
and which I obtained from your office by order of Lord Minto, as an assistance in my investigation ' 
of the Natural History of India. I hope you will be pleased to acknowledge their receipt.” 
Buchanan made over charge of the garden to Wallich on 23rd February 1815, and 
embarked that evening carrying with him, as we gather from his later writings, no 
very pleasant memory of this incident marking his last days in India. › 
Ав mementos of his Superintendentship two of Buchanan’s official letters are given 
here in full. They are selected because they refer to matters that are of as much 
interest to-day as they were when the letters were written. 
The first letter, dated 16th December 1814, deals with Boehmeria nivea—China 
grass, Ramia or Rhea, names that are now familiar but that were all quite unknown 
in India ninety years ago. Evidently, however, the article itself, and the difficulties 
connected with it, were very well understood even then. 
Roxburgh supposed. It is the Urtica. nivea of Willdenow, and the Raneeum majus of Rumphius’ 
Flora Amboinensis, volume 5th, table 79, figure Ist. The plant, under the name of Kankora, has from 
' In Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb. x. 186 (1821) Buchanan refers to the incident as an ill-judged t of authori 
unworthy of the character of the Marquis of Hastings, | judged act of аш te 
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