ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. HU 



modest sympathy in their interests, and intrepid advice when it was 

 asked, and honest rebuke when it was deserved and might he effec- 

 tual. His unobtrusiveness was perhaps the most striking quality 

 of his manner, to observers who knew what was in him. His piety, 

 reverent and heartfelt, was silent, as he preferred that that of others 

 should be. His domestic affections were unconcealable ; but spoken 

 sentiment was quite out of his way. His happy marriage (with the 

 daughter of his first commander, Captain Lestock Wilson) ended in 

 a mingling of pain and privilege which touched the hearts of all wit- 

 nesses. Never was so much understood with so little said. She died 

 of a lingering and most painful disease, making light of it to others 

 as long as possible, though the full truth was known to both ; she 

 kept her young children about her, with their mirth wholly unchecked, 

 to the latest possible day ; and the few who looked in on that sacred 

 scene saw that it was indeed true that, as she said, she had never 

 been happier than during that painful decline. As for him, there 

 was not the slightest remission of public duty, while his domestic 

 vigilance so powerfully assisted in smoothing her passage to the 

 grave. Now that both are gone, it is right to present this feature in 

 the character of the man so long before known as hero and as savant. 

 He came out from the long trial so much changed that it seemed 

 doubtful whether he would ever regain his health and buoyant cheer- 

 fulness. He lived, however, to see his children fulfilling, each his 

 own career of labour and honour : one son in the church, another 

 as Legal Remembrancer (Attorney- General) in Calcutta, and a third 

 as a judge in Bengal. By his second marriage, with a sister of 

 Maria Edgeworth, he secured a friend to himself and his daughters 

 for many of the latter years of his life. 



Among his public labours were those of the successive offices of 

 Commissioner of Pilotage, entered upon in 1835, and of Member of 

 the Royal Commission to examine into the state of the Tidal Har- 

 bours in the United Kingdom, in 1845. In 1846 he became Rear- 

 Admiral on the retired list rather than surrender his office ; but he 

 never liked his " yellow flag," and the mortification of his retirement 

 was but slightly solaced by the honour of the Knighthood of the 

 Bath, conferred in 1848. The sudden expansion of railway-projects 

 so increased his work that his health began to fail, but not till he 

 had reached an age at which few men think of work at all. Early 

 in 1855 he was obliged to retire and go home to a sick bed to suffer 

 with fortitude the pangs of a painful and incurable disease. He 

 was the same man to the last, — active and clear in mind, benevolent 

 and affectionate at heart, and benign in manners. His activity 

 never interfered with his profound quietude and peace ; and his 

 quietude and peace deepened, as his mind brightened, to the last. 



He was short in stature ; but none of those who were personally 

 acquainted with him will forget his countenance, which could no- 

 where pass without notice. Its astute intelligence, shining honesty, 

 and genial kindliness revealed the man so truly that, though he never 

 lauded himself, few were so correctly estimated, and so highly valued. 

 He was attended in his last hours by his adoring children, and died 



vol. xiv. e 



