No. 267.]

MEMOIR OF THE LATE CHARLES GRANT, ESQ.

(Concluded from page 76.)

THE only parliamentary measures of a date subsequent to the passing of the East-India Company's Charter Act, to which we shall advert, in consequence of the part Mr. Grant took in them, are, the India Circuitous Trade Bill, which passed in December 1813, and the proposal to lay open the China Trade, in 1820, 1821. On both these occasions, Mr. Grant's exertions for the defence of the Company's interests were incessant. He had retired from the House of Commons, on account of his advancing age, in 1819. He was nevertheless several times examined, at his own request, upon the China trade, before the Committees of both Houses in 1820 and 1821. The testimony which he gave upon these occasions was of considerable importance to the Company's interests; and it was supported by documents collected and prepared by himself, or under his immediate superintendance. In consequence of the evidence, and the remonstrances, of Mr. Grant, and the other friends and officers of the Company, no report was made by the Committee in the first session; and to this moment the projected innovation on the China trade remains unaccomplished. It is highly to Mr. Grant's honour that those who least agree with him in the view which he took of this question, and of similar ones, affecting, or considered by him to affect, the CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 267,

East-India Company's rights or interests, could not but acknowledge the conscientious integrity of his conviction, as well as the vigour of his capacity, and his unwearied zeal and perseverance in the discharge of what he considered to be his official responsibilities.

Mr. Grant's correspondence and intercourse were unusually extensive, and with persons of the first rank and consideration. Upon almost all occasions he received the fullest proofs of public as well as of private confidence, and, upon many, expressions of unusual respect. The opinion of Lord Cornwallis respecting him, at an early period of his public life, has been already adverted to. It is also generally understood that Lord Melville, while President of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, recommended him to the choice of the Proprietors of India Stock, and afterwards invited him to become a Member of the Bengal Council, which he declined, from motives the most disinterested and patriotic. The Proprietors of India Stock very soon after they had placed him in the Direction, suspended one of their own byelaws, to enable him to retain a commercial establishment which he had formed in India. In April 1807 they placed him in the Direction by a very unusual majority of votes ; Mr. Grant's name standing at the head of a list of twelve candidates, with 1,523 votes out of a Proprietary of less than 1,900 persons: and since his decease they have resolved to commemorate his distinguished services by the erection of a monuT

ment, at the Company's expense, in St. George's church, Bloomsbury.

The House of Commons, in which Mr. Grant sat for about seventeen years, namely, from 1802 to 1819, (being two years for the town, and fifteen for the county, of Inverness), repeatedly elected him on committees, some of which were not connected with India affairs. He was appointed by Act of Parliament (37 Geo. III. cap. 34, sect. 6.) one of the Commissioners for the issue of Exchequer Bills, and in 1818 was elected Chairman of those Commis sioners. He was also included in the Commission for the appropriation of the sum of 1,000,000/. sterling granted by Parliament for the erection of new churches.

Amidst the multiplicity of his occupations, his parliamentary constituents and his native country enjoyed a large share of his anxious attention. At the date of his election to a seat in Parliament, the Highlands of Scotland were, as regards the means of internal communication, in a state of almost primitive destitution. Adequately to supply these deficiencies, in a country so poor, so extensive, so thinly peopled, and abounding with physical obstacles, was an undertaking too gigantic for the efforts of local combination. Such being the undeniable condition of the Highlands, Government resolved to undertake various magnificent works, which, now in a state of completion, add greatly to the convenience and welfare of the country. The Caledonian Canal was the first which was commenced. The original conception of this navigation was of very early date; but Mr. Grant, though he did not originate it, stood forth at once as its indefatigable promoter and to his ceaseless importunities to Government, and his devoted services as a Commissioner, the country perhaps mainly owes it that the progress of this noble work was not in times of national danger and difficulty delayed, or completely frustrated. After twenty years of

anxious labour, Mr. Grant had the satisfaction, in one of his latest visits to the Highlands, of superintending in person the formal opening of this navigation. The Act for cutting the Caledonian Canal was followed by another for the formation of Highland roads and bridges. Mr. Grant, it is understood, was among the first projectors of this measure, and, for a period of twenty years, he strenuously exerted himself to advance it. The completion of this measure embraced the formation of fourteen hundred bridges, and above a thousand of the finest roads in Scotland. These works have been accomplished by an expenditure of above a million sterling. Among other measures of local improvement in his native country in which Mr. Grant co-operated, one of the latest efforts of his public life was the promotion of the Act for building and endowing fifty new churches in the extensive parishes of the Highlands. The establishments formed of late years in Edinburgh and in Inverness for the extension of education in the Highlands, which, by means of 150 schools supported by them, have done much to disperse the moral darkness of the remote parts of Scotland, constantly found in him a warm and efficient friend. Mr. Grant was also among the first to introduce Sunday-schools into this quarter. Two of these he supported by giving salaries to the teachers at his own private expense, which he continued to do during the last twenty years of his life.

Among many private testimonies to his worth it may be sufficient to refer to two, being those of political opponents. The late Sir Philip Francis, at the close of a debate on India affairs, in which he had been decidedly opposed to Mr. Grant, declared, that no man in England had a higher opinion of his moral character than he had. "Upon the facts in question," Sir Philip added, "there cannot be a more competent witness, nor any human evidence less to be suspected."

Another opponent, Mr. Scott Waring, declared that Mr. Grant was "incapable of asserting what he did not believe to be true, or of delivering his sentiments on a subject which he did not understand."

Although Mr. Grant ever considered the affairs of India as his peculiar province, and as a sufficient occupation for his mind, he allowed himself to have some other public engagements; but chiefly in connection with religious or benevolent objects. He appears to have been for many years a Director of the South-Sea Company. He was a member of the Society in London for promoting Christian Knowledge, as well as of another society of the same name, connected exclusively with the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He was elected a Vicepresident of the British and Foreign Bible Society upon its institution, in 1804, and was at different subsequent periods chosen Vice-president of the Bloomsbury and North-East London Auxiliary Societies *. He

⚫ The following honourable resolution, passed unanimously by the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Nov. 17, 1823, on the intelligence of his lamented death, will shew how highly and justly his value was estimated, not only by the members of that incomparable institution, but by all who had an opportunity of witnessing his wise, zealous, and pious exertions in this and other works of Christian mercy:—

"With feelings of the deepest interest, the Committee have listened to the melancholy intelligence of the death of Charles Grant, Esq. one of the Vice-Presidents of this Society; and while they desire to express their heartfelt sympathy with his afflicted family, they feel it incumbent on them to record their sense of the eminent services he was enabled to render, not only to this Society, but to the cause of religion throughout the world. In this cause, during the long period of half a century, he laboured with unwearied zeal; and his active and persevering exertions, proceeding from Christian principle, and directed by talents of the highest order, and by a judgment singularly enlightened, profound, and penetrating, were productive of the most beneficial effects. Closely

was also connected with the Church Missionary Society. To many other associations, of a religious or charitable description, he afforded the sanction of his name and the aid of his contribution.

In the service of the oppressed Africans he joined his friend Mr. Wilberforce, in 1807, as a member of the temporary committee of gen. tlemen then associated with a view to the establishment of the African Institution. To their labours and efficiency he essentially contributed, and was afterwards chosen one of the Directors.

The eminent qualifications of Mr. Grant, as a statesman and a man occupied in public affairs, must have been sufficiently apparent to every reader of this memoir. It may not, however, be improper to observe, that as a public speaker he commanded attention in debate by an connected as he was, from early life, with British India, its spiritual interests lay peculiarly near his heart, and his efforts to promote them only ceased at the moment

when he was called to his eternal reward. It pleased Divine Providence to honour him with numerous opportunities of extensive usefulness in that quarter of the globe; and those opportunities he both eagerly embraced and successfully improved. In particular, he was greatly instrumental in promoting and protecting those beneficent institutions for the diffusion of the holy Scriptures, which sprang up in India itself, and which have so copiously enriched our Asiatic dominions with the treasures of Divine Truth. Severely as his loss will be felt by this and every other society which has for its object the glory of God or the happiness of man, to British India it might be deemed almost irreparable, were it not for the persuasion that the great cause to which he devoted the unceasing labours of his life, and the powerful faculties of his mind, was emphatically the cause of Him who has the hearts of all men in his hands. It is the hope and earnest prayer of the Committee, that He may graciously raise up, in the place of this venerated individual, other instruments, possessing the rare endowments and the large and liberal views by which he was distinguished, and equally disposed with him to consecrate them all to their Saviour's service,"

erect, majestic, and, in the latter years of his life, venerable figure; by a voice deep and sonorous, an enunciation clear and deliberate, and, above all, by arguments perspicuous and convincing. He accustomed himself to deliver his sentiments with gravity, and appeared to expect the same temper in his auditory. His style in writing corresponded with that of his eloquence. Cautious and deliberative in the examination of his authorities, his references to written or printed documents were generally unanswerable. As a friend, he was ardent and constant. In no part of his conduct was the firmness of his mind more apparent than in the inviolability of his friendships. To the numerous individuals who enjoyed his patronage, he was always accessible, and frank in his communications; and his kindness to them rarely terminated with a single instance. As a philanthropist, and more especially as a Christian, Mr. Grant is entitled to the praise of eminent consistency and zeal. The decision of his character respecting religion enabled him often to surmount such opposition to his benevolent projects as would have overturned the purposes of many other men. But Mr. Grant, to the last moment of his life, retained, and illustrated in his conduct, the religious principles and philanthropical views which he had imbibed in India.

The great subjects of Christian benevolence were ever present to his understanding, and near his heart, and appeared to have a powerful influence upon his actions, leading him in the prosecution of his multifarious occupations to travel in paths into which the ordinary details of business would never have led him. Under some aspect or other they were almost constantly before him, and are believed to have occupied his close attention within a few days, and probably within a few hours, of his decease.

Such was the late Mr. Grant; a man of extraordinary natural en

dowments, employing his great powers to the best of purposes; a man of whom it may be truly said, that, while he was laborious in the affairs of this life, "all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven."

We have spoken in the preceding sketch generally of his eminent piety; but we should not satisfy our own feelings, or do justice to the character of this devout man, if we did not add a more distinct and specific reference to this important part of the subject: and we are happy to be able to do so in the language of the clergyman whose ministrations he was in the habit of attending; and whose testimony is amply borne out by the suffrages of all who had the opportunity of witnessing Mr. Grant's habitual piety, of which his characteristic humility and teachableness in the house of God were expressive indications. Mr. Wilson thus depicts the character of his revered friend:

"This distinguished person, in point of natural endowments, was highly gifted. He had a vigorous understanding, a clear and sound judgment, a sagacity and penetration, particularly in the discernment of character, which were seldom deceived or eluded, a singular faculty of patient, impartial, and comprehensive investigation, an activity of spirit, and a power of continued and persevering application, which difficulties could not damp, nor labour exhaust. These quali ties, united with quick sensibility of feeling, delicacy of sentiment, and a strong sense of moral rectitude, constituted, even independently of religion, that which is generally understood by the term greatness of character.

"It was not, however, the possession, but the direction and the improvement, of these endowments and qualifications; it was the use which he made of his powers and faculties; it was the sincere and honest dedication of every talent and acquirement to the service and glory of God, which constituted