252 
ONE?. 
would dart from my couch, and exclaim with Trebonius, 
If you mean to aft worthily, O Romans! I am well.” It 
will hereafter appear how much he was in earneft in this 
generous purpofe. 
How well he was able to unite claffical erudition with 
legal knowledge, appeared in his Tranflation of the 
Speeches of Ifasus, with a prefatory difcourfe, notes, and 
commentary, publidied in 1778. The elegance of ftyle, 
and the profound critical and hiftorical refearch, difplayed 
in this performance, commanded the applaufe of all com¬ 
petent judges. Although quitting the beaten track of a 
profeffipn is not, perhaps, the readied way to attain fuc- 
cefs in it, yet Mr. Jones’s talents and diligence were too 
confpicnous not to meet with encouragement; and his 
praftice at the bar rapidly increafed. But there exided 
an impediment to his progrefs towards profeiTional rank 
and dignity, which could not eafily be furmounted. From 
the commencement of the American war, he had been 
convinced of the injuftice of the Britilh caufe, and had, 
with his charafteriltic manlinefs of difpofition, made no 
fecret of his opinion. Moreover, his early fondnefs for 
the writers of Greece and Rome had made him an entliu- 
fiaft for political liberty ; and his ardent attachment to 
the Englifh conftitution was formed upon the view he 
took of it, as the freed fydern of government that the 
wifdom of man had ever framed. In a letter to lord Al- 
thorpe, he mentions his conviftion “ that on the popular 
part of every government depends its real force, the obli¬ 
gation of its laws, its welfare, its fecurity, its permanence.” 
In the clafh of parties, therefore, which at this period be¬ 
came very violent, he dood diftinguifhed as an oppofer of 
the principles and meafures of thofe \Vho had then the 
direction of public affairs. To his feelings on the Ame¬ 
rican conted he gave vent in a very fpirited and clafiical 
Latin Ode to Liberty, which he publidied under the fic¬ 
titious name Julius Melefigonus, formed by a tranfpofi- 
tion of the letters of his own. In 1780 he became a 
candidate to fucceed fir Roger Newdigate as reprefentative 
in parliament of the univerfity of Oxford. He was re- 
fpeftably fupported ; but bis political principles were too 
little in unifon with thofe of that body in general to gain 
him a plurality of voices, and he declined the conteft be¬ 
fore the time of eledtion. Poffeffing the conditutional 
jealoufy of a danding army, which has ever didinguidied 
the friends of liberty in this country, the difgraceful tu¬ 
mults of that year induced him to write a pamphlet enti¬ 
tled An Enquiry into the legal Mode of fuppreffing Riots, 
with a Conditutional Plan of future Defence. This 
plan was founded upon that idea of making every citizen 
a foldier, which the imminent danger of invafion has 
lately caufed to be carried into execution to fo large an 
extent. 
His former familiarity with the Mufe would not fuffer 
him, even in the midd of thefe ferious concerns, intirely 
to defert her ; and he devoted fome ltifure time in the 
following winter to the completion of a trandation of fe- 
ven ancient poems of the highed repute in Arabia. He 
alfo, on occafion of the marriage of lord Althorpe, com- 
pofed a very poetical congratulatory ode, with the title of 
The Mufe recalled. A lhort ode of a different kind, in 
the fervent and free drain of Alceus, dedicated to liberty 
and patriotifm, which he foon after printed, became a 
great favourite with the Votaries of thofe noble interefts. 
That this recurrence to his former purfuits might not be 
thought to indicate a relaxation in his profefiional ftudies, 
he gave to legal readers an Effay on the Law of Bail¬ 
ments, which was much admired for its fcientific arrange¬ 
ment and clearnefs of elucidation. The attempts in the 
year 1782 for procuring a reform of parliament had in 
him a zealous friend ; and he ably fupported the princi¬ 
ple in a fpeech at a meeting for the purpofe at the Lon¬ 
don tavern, which was printed. He alfo became a mem¬ 
ber of the Society for Conditutional Information, and 
employed his pen in promoting its obje&s. During an 
excursion to Paris in that year, he drew up a fliort Dia¬ 
logue between a Farmer and Country Gentleman on the 
Principles of Government. For the publication of an 
edition of this tract in Wales, the dean of St. Afaph (af¬ 
terwards his brother-in-law) had a bill of indictment pre¬ 
ferred againd him for fedition. Upon this event Mr. 
Jones fent a letter to lord Kenyon, then chief judice of 
Chefter, avowing himfelf to be the author, and maintain¬ 
ing that every pofition in it was ftriftly conformable to 
the laws and conftitution of England. Fie feems, how¬ 
ever, not long to have preferved His political ardour; for, 
in a letter to the bifliop of St. Aftaph, dated September, 
178a, he fays, “As to politics, I begin to think that the- 
natural propenfity of men to difient from one another 
will prevent them, in a corrupt age, from uniting in any 
laudable defign ; and at prefent 1 have nothing co do but 
to reft on my oars.” 
The pod of one of the judges in the Englifii territories 
of India had long been a particular objeft of his withe's, 
principally on account of the opportunity it would afford 
him of gratifying his paftion for oriental refearches. Dur¬ 
ing lord North’s adminiftration, lie -flattered himfelf with 
the profpeft of obtaining this fituation ; but it was not 
till the change of minidry, which brought lord Shelburne 
into.power, that his hopes were fulfilled. In March 1783, 
he received the appointment of a judge of the fupreme 
court of judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and at the 
fame time the honour of knighthood was conferred upon 
him. He was now in circumftanees which permitted him 
to folicit an union with an amiable lady who had long pof- 
fefled his affeftions; and in the April following, he married 
Maria-Anna Shipley, the elded daughter-of the bilhop 
of St. Afaph, a prelate, like himfelf, warmly attached to 
the principles of liberty. Immediately after, he embark¬ 
ed with his bride for India, rejoicing in the independency 
and ufefulnefs that lay before him, and probably confoled 
for his reparation from his Englifh friends, by the idea 
that he was quitting a ftormy fcer.e of politics, in which 
it would have been difficult for him to aft a confident 
part. He mentions, in a letter to lord Afhburton, the cir- 
cumftance of the profecution of the dean of St. Afaph on 
account of his Dialogue ; and fays, “ As to the doftrines 
in the traft, though I certainly fhall not preach them to the 
Indians, who mud and will be governed by abfolute 
power, yet I fhall go through life with the perfuafion that 
they are juft and rational.” He touched in his courfe at 
the ifland of Hinzuan, or Joanna, of which he gave an en¬ 
tertaining and accurate defcription. See Joanna. 
He arrived at Calcutta in September 1783, and en¬ 
tered upon his funftions in.December, when he open¬ 
ed the feffions with a very elegant and appropriate 
charge to the grand jury. The field of aftion and en¬ 
quiry which now prefented itfelf to him was immenfe; 
and, forefeeing that his official duties would greatly 
abridge the time he would have wifhed to allot to fci¬ 
entific and literary purfuits, he planned the inftitution 
of a fociety in Calcutta fimilar to the Royal Society of 
London. So much activity did his fpirit infpire, that the 
members affembled in January 1784.; and, after the go¬ 
vernor-general, Mr. Haftings, had declined the offered 
prefidency, it was unanimously conferred upon fir Wil¬ 
liam Jones. Senfible of the neceffity of a knowledge of 
the Shanfcrit, the facred dialeft of India, in order to pur- 
fue his refearches into the inftitutes and antiquities of 
the country, he fet about the ftudy of it with his charac- 
teriftic ardour. His health foon differed from the cli¬ 
mate, and for its reftoration he took a journey through 
South Bahar and the diftrift of Benares. Even while op- 
preffed by bodily languor, his mind was active, and he 
brought back with him two compolitions; one, a tale in 
verfe, entitled The Enchanted Fruit, or the Hindu Wife; 
the other, a Treatife on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and 
India, inferted in the Memoirs of the Society of Calcutta. 
Fie refumed his feat on the bench and his place in the fo¬ 
ciety in the beginning of 1785, and pronounced before 
the latter his fecond anniverfary difcourfe. In order to 
avoid 
