xlvi A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
and drawings, but who had not received a share of the Nepal collections. What, 
however, His Excellency lays stress on is the vagueness, indistinctness and absolute 
uselessness, without the aid of drawings, of Buchanan’s descriptions. The only 
descriptions, without the aid of drawings, arranged for publication by Buchanan prior to 
1815 were those drawn up by him in 1796 for his account of the plants of Ava, the 
manuscript of which, as Buchanan himself tells us, was forwarded to Banks. : 
When Buchanan reached London in 1815 he presented all his collections to the 
Court of Directors, who sent the following despatch, dated December 15th, 1815, on 
the subject to the Government at Calcutta :— | 
“ Dr, Francis Buchanan, of the Bengal Medical Establishment, who is lately arrived in this country, 
having made us an offer of his collections in natural history, coins and Hindu manuscripts, which 
he brought home with him on the Marchioness of Ely, we have accepted of the same and directed 
that the several articles of which they are e»mprised should be deposited in the Company's library. 
At the same time that Dr. Buchanan made us this offer he represented that during the progress 
of his survey of the territories under your Ртәзідепзу, which we are informed has now been brought 
to a conelusion, he made a considerable collection of prepared plants and minerals and that he had 
employed the painters attached to the survey, when not required in making drawings illustrative of 
that work, in delineating plants and minerals, als» that it was his intention to have presented the 
whole of these specimens and drawings to us if your Government, af:er having directed them to be 
forwarded to this country freight free, had not thought fit to detain them in India as appendaces 
to the reports which he had made of his survey. 
As the proceedings of your Government of January and February last (the date of the corre- 
spondence submitted by Dr. Buchanan) are not yet arrived, wo are unable to form any opinion on 
the eireams'anees under which these articles were detained by you; but as it is desirable that the whole 
of the materials illustrative of the natural history of India which have been accumulated by Dr. 
Buchanan should be deposited in the Compiny’s library, we direct the immediate transmission to us 
of the drawings and collections in question, copies of such of the drawings being retained in India 
as шау be deemed indispensably necessary for the illustration of Dr. Buchanan’s reports.” 
The striking feature of this despatch is the inaccuracy with which it is drafted. 
The statement that Buchanan had made drawings of ‘plants and minerals’ is an 
obvious lapsus calami for ‘plants and animals, but the statement that the Government 
at Calcutta detained any ‘specimens’ or ‘ collections’ is a more serious error. The 
despatch admits that Buchanan had laid the correspondence before them, and the 
writer of the despateh was therefore well aware that only certain specified drawings 
had boen retained; it further admits that Buchanan had brought home and given to 
Ше Court all his natural listory collections, Yet the despatch accuses the Govern- 
ment at Caleutta of retaining, and asks that Government to send home, not only 
the drawings of which Buchanan had, as the letters show, been deprived, but part of 
the collections which the despatch itself announces that the Court had already received. 
From what actually happened to the drawings we know that they were not 
kept, as Day supposed, to illustrate Buchanan's reports, and it is пор quite a fair 
| interpretation of the facts of the case to say, as Beveridge suggests, that they were 
retained for the benefit of the Botanic Garden. Buchanan embarked, as we have seen ; 
on February 23rd, 1815, and two days later Wallich, who relieved Buchanan, was 
requested to call at the Secretariat and take. away Buchanan’s drawings. The 
м following letter, dated 25th February 1815, was subsequently sent to him:— 
ea nm directed by the Honourable the Vice-President in Council to transmit to you the 
accompanying drawings of natural productions, &c., collected by Dr. Buchanan during the period he 
