G2 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 1. 



For January, 1859. 



At the Annual General Meeting of the Society held on the 5th 

 January, 1859. 



A. Grote, Esq., V. P., in the Chair. 



The proceedings commenced by the Secretary reading the follow- 

 ing note from the Hon'ble Sir James Colvile, Kt., President of 

 the Society, announcing his wish to resign, in consequence of his 

 intended departure from India. 



Calcutta, December 24<th, 1858. 

 E. B. Cowell, Esq., Secretary, Asiatic Society. 



Sir, — My resignation of the office of Chief Justice has been accept- 

 ed by the Secretary of State for India ; and I purpose to leave India 

 at the end of March, 1859. 



In this state of things I ought not, I conceive, to be proposed for 

 re-election as President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, at the 

 approaching annual meeting of the Society. The Society ought 

 then to have the opportunity of electing a President who may be pre- 

 sumed to be capable of performing the duties of the office during 

 the whole year. I beg, therefore, that you will circulate this letter 

 amongst the Members of the Council, in order that they may deter- 

 mine whom they will propose as the next President ; I beg also 

 that if there be no objection to that course, this letter may be laid 

 before the Society at its annual meeting. 



I am naturally desirous to take that opportunity of expressing my 

 deep sense of the honor which the Society has conferred upon me, in 

 electing me for ten successive years to be its President ; and of 

 apologizing for my many short-comings in the discharge of the duties 

 of that office. I have never disguised from myself that I owed this 

 distinction rather to the accident of official rank, than to my per- 

 sonal qualifications for the office. I have always felt that the Pre- 

 sident of our Society ought to be one who had established some 

 reputation for himself, either in the field of scientific inquiry, or 

 in that of antiquarian research ; and I was once most anxious to 

 make way for one who had every qualification which the President 

 of such a Societ}' ought to possess, the late Sir Henry Elliot. His 

 absence from Calcutta frustrated my desires ; and I continued to 



