ii PREFACE. 
of the matter was therefore, with commendable sagacity, excluded from mention in the 
original proposal. Warren Hastings had in 1785 been driven into resignation of the 
office of Governor-General by the successful machinations of his enemies in England; 
Colonel Kyd’s proposal did not therefore come officially before that great and far-seeing 
statesman, but before Sir John Macpherson, who acted as Governor-General pending 
the arrival of Lord Cornwallis from England. Sir John Macpherson recorded a minute 
in its favour; and a copy of this minute, together with the proposal itself, were sent 
home by the Calcutta Government, warmly recommended to the Court of Directors, in 
a public general letter dated 2lst August 1786. So much in fact were the local 
Government impressed with the advantages of Colonel Kyd’s proposed scheme that, 
without waiting fora reply to this letter from the Board, they secured land for the 
Garden ‘in anticipation of sanction;” and, in a letter dated 27th July 1787, they 
reported this action to the Directors. This second letter, however, must have crossed a 
despatch, dated London, 31st July 1787, in which the Board not only conveyed their 
sanction to the formation of the Garden suggested by Colonel Kyd, but warmly approved 
his action in bringing the proposal to. their notice. 
Colonel Kyd’s country heuse and. garden* stood near the village of Sibpur, on a 
promontory round which the Hooghly bends in passing the site of the present Fort 
William (at that time only recently completed), and which. was known then (as it is 
“now) as Shalimar. And it was land in the vicinity of Shalimar, and separated from his 
own private garden only by a ditch, which Colonel Kyd selected for the proposed Botanic 
i 
* The following extract is from the late Dr. T. Anderson’s “ Notes on the foundation of the Botanic Garden, 
Calcutta,” in the Journal of the Agri-Horticultural Society of India, volume I, new series, p. 171:— 
‘I have endeavoured to discover the site of Colonel Kyd’s garden, referred to by Dr. Roxburgh in the second 
volume of the “ Flora Indica,” page 629. It is currently reported that Colonel Kyd built the house on the river bank, 
which I have already referred to,.and the grounds around that house, extending westwards to the eastern boundary of 
Bishop’s College, seem to have been Colonel Kyd’s private garden. These grounds are known as Kyd’s Garden, 
Royd’s Garden (Sir John Royd, Judge of the Supreme Court, to whom Roxburgh dedicated his genus of Capparidacex 
Roydsia), Barwell’s Garden, and in 1819 I find them styled Metcalfe’s Garden. The land on which Colonel Kyd 
is supposed to have built the Shalimar House belongs to the zamindars called the Sibpur Chowdries. The- land 
is held from them on a perpetual lease (mowrasipottah) said to be drawn up in Colonel Kyd’s name, and this 
lease is now in the possession of the widow of Rajah Kissennath, near Murshidabad. Until 1820 this garden of 
Shalimar, which I believe was Colonel Kyd’s private garden, was separated from the Botanical Gardens merely by 2 
ditch, crossed by a masonry bridge, over which was brought a metalled road, which ran in a continuous line on a: bund 
from the Shalimar House into what was then part of the Botanical Garden. This toad and bridge still exist.’ 
The following extract from the diary of a friend of Major Alexander Kyd gives a rather depreciatory account of the 
garden house which that officer had inherited from Colonel R. Kyd. The concluding note by another hand, which states 
the price at which Major Kyd sold it, shows, however, that it must have been rather a good house, for in those days 
Rs. 40,000 went much further than the same sum. would do now: ‘2ls¢ January 1796.—Breakfast at Major Kyd’s. 
The house and grounds very neat and well laid out, but only two good apartments in it, which are at the extremities 
vf the two wings. The little octagon room in the middle, to which there is a dome, is so small as scarcely to dine 
six people with servants behind their chairs, and the ornaments are so multiplied as to give that a trifling appearance, 
which, were it on a sufficient scale, would have a grand effect; but all this blame is not to be imputed to the Major: 
it arose from his unwillingness to pull down the old house in which the octagon room was as having been built by 
his uncle, from whom he inherits it. The building has, however, u 
outside, and is abundantly CGonvrenient,’- 
Rs. 40,000. ; 
pon the whole, an imposing appearance. on the 
In 1795 Major Kyd sold his “Garden House” to Nabob Sydat Alli for 
