INTRODUCTION. 
3 
received in one of them have already left hitn but a shattered constitution. 
This consideration and his being deprived of every means of advantage while 
he is thus continually moving up and down a country unexplored by Europeans, 
to the utmost risk of his life, we hope will justify us for increasing his salary 
to Rs. 300 per month, which indeed may be considered as only a just reward for 
past services and sufferings. We beg leave to recommend it as a measure well 
worth your attention, the keeping your Corps of Engineers constantly supplied 
with young gentlemen properly instructed in that particular branch.” 
Rennell was first employed on the survey of the Ganges delta with the special 
object in view of finding a shorter passage suitable for large vessels from the Ganges 
to Calcutta, than that through the Sunderbans and the Meghna. The Journal gives a 
detailed account of this voyage and of three subsequent expeditions, during which 
he surveyed a great part of Northern and Eastern Bengal, penetrating beyond 
Goalpara on the Brahmaputra which was then on the frontier of the Assamese king- 
dom. It was while he was engaged on this duty on the frontier of Kuch Behar that 
he met with the accident referred to in the letter quoted above. He was surrounded 
by a party of Sunyasi Fakirs, a fanatic tribe then in rebellion, and was desperately 
wounded, barely escaping with his life. A full account of this skirmish is given in 
the Journal (p. 74), and further details in Sir C. Markham’s biography. 1 
The Journal ends in March 1767, when Rennell was engaged in completing the 
survey of the rivers of the Ganges delta, but was forced to desist by a severe attack 
of fever, to which he was continually subject. An account of his further service in 
India will be found in Sir C. Markham’s Biography. In 1771 he was sent in com- 
mand of an expedition against his old enemies the Sunyasi Fakirs, with complete 
success; and a year later he married Miss Jane Thackeray, whose brother, William 
Makepeace Thackeray, grandfather of the novelist, was secretary to Mr. Cartier, the 
Governor at that time, an old Dacca friend of Rennell’s. 
Rennell retired from the service in 1776, shortly after being promoted to the 
rank of Major in the Bengal Engineers, with a pension granted to him by Warren 
Hastings.' 2 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1781 and took up his 
residence in Eondon, where his house became a meeting-place for travellers from all 
1 Op. cit., p. 47. 
2 Through the courtesy of Mr. B, A. Gupte, the officer iu charge of the Victoria Memorial collection in Calcutta, 
I am enabled to transcribe Rennell’ s application for a pension, the original of which is preserved in that collection : — 
To the Hon ble Warren Hastings Esq r President and Governor, &c., Council of Fort William. 
Honorable Sir and Sirs, 
My Circumstances and Situation in Fife reduce me to the necessity of making the following Application to You, in 
hopes that by the favor of your Patronage, my Case may be represented to my honorable Employers ; from 
whose Justice and Humanity alone I may expect the accomplishment of my just Desires : namely, the being 
enabled to retire from this Country ; where, by means of a painful and labourious Service of 13 Years, and by 
various Accidents of Wounds and Sickness, iny Health is so bad, that I am advised by my Physicians to lose 
no Time in quitting a Place, in which I have experienced no tolerable degree of Health for these eight Years 
past : and iu which, if hard Necessity compels me to stay, I can only expect to linger out a few Years longer. 
\et, however necessary it may be to change my Situation, the slenderness of my Means will not permit me to live 
in England, encumbered as I am with a large Family, and disabled from pursuing any active Employment 
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