This estimable and religious man was not endowed with any of the
splendid intellect of Pitt, nor with any portion of the brilliant
genius of Burke; yet his abilities were such, and so sufficiently
recognized, that the former, when in the pride of place and power,
thought prudent to nominate him for a trust hardly less important
than his own, though without family influence or connections; and the
latter, when denouncing the administration of affairs in the East,
to protest against the appointment with feelings of which contempt
assuredly formed not one of the ingredients. Indeed, his career, so
remarkably successful and extraordinary, presents a pleasing and
inciting example of a person ungifted with any marvelous capacity
raising himself to become the peaceful and spotless ruler of millions
of human beings.
The family from which he derived descent was of considerable antiquity
in the county of Derby; and in former days several of its members
had been returned to the House of Commons. Being connected, as times
changed, with India by a matrimonial alliance, one of the race became a
captain in the Company’s marine; and his son, while in the enjoyment of
a lucrative situation as supercargo, married, for the second time, the
daughter of an officer belonging to the same service, and had two sons;
of whom John Shore, destined to fill one of the most splendid places
on the face of the earth, was born in London, on the 5th of October,
1751. He was subsequently removed into Essex, where his parents usually
resided; and there the infancy of the future Governor-general of India,
was passed, much like that of other boys of his age and condition.
These were the good old-fashioned days, when parents were not
nervously apprehensive of any fatal effects from dressing their sons
in garments befitting their sex, and allowing them that degree of
liberty consistent with a proper attention to order. Accordingly, at
a very early age, Shore availed himself of the license afforded him,
and contrived, by hook or by crook, to find his way to the roof of a
very high barn, the most elevated part of which he bestrode with an
utter and lucky unconsciousness of the extreme danger to which he was
exposed. Fortunately he was rescued from this perilous resting-place
without any mishap; and, probably with a view of keeping him out of
such mischief in future, he was mounted every morning on one of the
coach-horses, before his father’s serving-man, and in this fashion
rode to a school in the vicinity; to be initiated into learning
at this rustic establishment, and into the ways of the world as
understood by the juveniles who attended it. He was in good time
removed to a seminary at Tottenham; and about the same date he lost his
much-respected father: but the surviving parent was a woman of highly
estimable character, polished manners, and with such an annual income
as enabled her to give her two sons a liberal education.
Shortly after the melancholy event alluded to, John Shore was
destined to the service of the East India Company, while he was yet
a little boy, with a spare frame, but sinewy, and such as fitted
him to take part in, and enjoy puerile sports and pastimes. This
arrangement was brought about by an old friend of the family, who
was perhaps glad to secure for the Company the prospective services
of so thorough-bred an aspirant as the son of a supercargo and the
grandson of a captain in their marine, unquestionably, might claim
to be. The offer of a writership was thus made, and, as a matter of
course, promptly accepted. This affair being satisfactorily settled,
Shore was removed to a school at Hertford, where he delighted in being
admitted to an excellent library to improve his mind and extend his
information. He, moreover, gratified a natural taste for poetical
compositions by rising early in the morning to feast his spirit on
Pope’s “Homer;” and he perused books of travel till his imagination
had been taken captive with the idea of such adventure, that he
longed, with as much enthusiasm as he was capable of, to go on some
expedition of discovery. Such a desire would, in all probability, be
rather heightened than otherwise by the prospect of ere long sunning
himself beneath an Eastern sky; and apparently his general interest
in such matters did not soon expire, from the anxiety he afterward
manifested to possess some account of Sir Joseph Banks’s voyage round
the world, which otherwise would have been of little moment to a
youth exercising judicial functions in India at the age of twenty,
or thereabouts. While at Hertford, Shore had what he considered a
miraculous escape from drowning, and which he ever afterward ascribed
to a special interposition of Providence in his behalf. Along with a
young companion, he had gone to bathe in a river in the neighborhood
of the school; and, in their haste and carelessness, they had mistaken
a deep pool for the place where they usually immersed themselves. They
were just on the point of plunging in when a voice called on them to
wait, and, at the moment, an equestrian appeared at their side, quite
as suddenly and opportunely as the two strange horsemen did at Lake
Regillus. He demanded if they could swim, and on being answered in the
negative, threatened them with a sharp castigation unless they walked
off immediately. Thus menaced, and considering that they were at the
moment liable to be lashed with peculiar facility and effect, the
gentle youths clutched up their raiment, and, in fear and trembling,
fled from the spot.
While encouraging and cultivating his turn for general literature,
Shore had not lagged behind his fellows in the proper studies of
the school; and in the course of time he was sent to Harrow, then
flourishing under the auspices of Dr. Sumner. There he was placed
on the fifth form, between Sheridan and Halhead; Dr. Parr being
tutor of the three. Shore applied himself to his classic studies,
and showed so keen a sense of their beauties that he became a great
favorite with the learned and fastidious head-master; though it was
augured, that of the three leading boys, Halhead was the one destined
to immortal distinction. And while events were proving the fallacy
of this prognostication, Harrovian prophets were preparing another
proof of the vanity of human anticipations by assigning to Sir George
Sinclair the prospective triumphal crown in preference to Lord Byron
and Sir Robert Peel. Shore left when on the point of succeeding to the
captaincy of the school. When Warren Hastings, at once the ablest and
most unscrupulous governor whom India ever saw, obtained a writership
and was shipped off to Bengal, his withdrawal from studies which
seemed likely to make so clever a youth one of the first scholars of
the age not only elicited an indignant remonstrance from the master
of Westminster, but even prompted that worthy individual to make the
generous and disinterested offer of sending so promising a pupil to
Oxford at his own expense; but it does not appear that the fate of the
future friend, associate, and successor of Hastings, excited equal
interest or pity in the breast of Dr. Sumner. However, their intimacy
had become such that a correspondence was commenced between them,
which did not cease till death put a period to it.
When Shore left Harrow, it was found that, however accomplished his
education had rendered him generally, he was by no means possessed
of a kind of knowledge which the Company required their servants to
be perfect in,――namely, the keeping of accounts with correctness. In
order, therefore, to qualify himself for the post to which he had
been nominated, Shore was placed for a few months at an academy at
Hoxton, where he was initiated into the mysteries of arithmetic and
book-keeping, and fitted to enter upon and pursue his duties, and
return with a fortune, if he escaped Asiatic tigers and the yellow
fever. The seminary, strangely enough, contained a young nobleman,
destined, like Shore, to enact the part of Governor-general of India,
namely, the Marquis of Hastings, whom, half a century later, he had an
opportunity of reminding of their early acquaintance, when the stately
peer was on the point of embarking on the administration of the affairs
of that empire which had been preserved and rendered durable by the
vigor and courage of his great namesake.
Toward the close of 1768 Shore sailed from England, in company with
about a dozen of writers and cadets, who proved a most disorderly set;
and about the middle of the next year he set foot in Calcutta, which
then consisted of tenements, whose appearance promised any thing rather
than comfort to the weary and storm-tossed voyager. Nothing aspiring
even to the dignity of a brick house was to be seen, however inelegant
such a structure may be thought; and the town was rendered unhealthy by
exposure to open drains, which emitted smells little resembling those
of rose-water or meadow hay. This was no agreeable place of residence
for a lad whose health was so impaired that the companions of his
voyage almost gave him up as lost. Nevertheless, he bore up against all
disadvantages, though scarcely having a single letter of introduction;
and was, soon after his arrival, consigned for twelve months to a desk
in the secret political department, where he labored with exemplary
industry at the records. Though his income was fearfully small, he
practiced the most stern economy rather than rely on his mother for
assistance; while so rare and rigid was his integrity, in an age when
Indian officials did not scruple to help themselves, and thus make up
for their limited salaries, that he won the meritorious appellation
of “honest John;” which in subsequent life, and in the midst of
multitudinous temptations, he never was guilty of forfeiting.
In 1770 Shore was nominated assistant to the Provincial Council at
Moorshedabad, where, deprived of all real power, the Nabob of Bengal
still resided, with princely magnificence, and played at government.
While holding this office, the young writer had the unexpected good
fortune to be elevated to the responsible position of a judge, at
the immature age of nineteen. The fact of his being invested with
large and important juridical functions, furnishes a pretty strong
illustration of the remark of Hastings, as to “the boys of the service”
being “the sovereigns of the country.” But this charge, so far from
overwhelming Shore, called forth the innate steadiness and perseverance
of his character; and he discharged the duties with so much success,
that, though he decided no fewer than six hundred cases in a single
year, there were not more than two appeals against the justice of his
adjudication. Meanwhile his leisure hours were diligently devoted to
the improvement of his mind, and to preparation for climbing the steep
ascent that yet lay, enveloped in shadow, between him and the height
he was destined to reach with honor and security. Perceiving what
profit might arise from an acquaintance with the Oriental languages,
his industry was immediately aroused to the undertaking; and he strove
for proficiency in the Arabic, Persian, and Hindostanee tongues. He
did not neglect his former learning, but kept a journal in Latin, that
the language might remain fresh in his memory, and read from several
Greek authors with a similar object. Still he imagined that the road to
fortune and affluence was daily narrowing, and complained that hope,
patience, and perseverance, were all he had left; though most people
would be inclined to consider such qualities very sufficient capital
for an intelligent youth who had hardly arrived at legal age. He was
still regretting that he had left England, when, after employing
his knowledge of Oriental languages before the Provincial Council at
Moorshedabad, he was appointed a member of the Board of Revenue, and
thus plunged into that long quarrel which was, as years rolled on,
transferred from the council-chamber of Calcutta to Westminster Hall.
He owed this promotion to the opponents of Hastings, and was, besides,
inclined to sympathize in their opinions; but he could not regard the
distracted state of affairs in British India without dreading the
influence it might have on his personal fortunes. He felt the extreme
difficulty that there was of taking any course without endangering
his prospects, and he looked to the future with a gloomy eye. At
this crisis his good angel appeared, in the shape of a sagacious
old gentleman; who, after listening to his expressions of doubt and
anxiety, said, “Young man, make yourself useful, and you will succeed.”
Shore, luckily for his own interests, accepted the maxim as the rule
of his life and conduct,――frequently repeated it to, and inculcated it
on, others; and he found the system it enjoined wonderfully efficacious
in promoting his interests under divers circumstances. His opinions
and feelings were avowedly hostile to the supremacy of Hastings; and
he was employed to revise one of the bitter philippics launched by the
vain and rancorous Francis against the dread governor, when the star of
the latter was thought to have fallen. Add to this, that Shore lent
his pen to prepare a memorial against the Supreme Court of Judicature,
and its chief-justice, Sir Elijah Impey, the former school-fellow, and
now unprincipled tool, of Hastings. These matters he managed with all
the skill and dexterity possible in the position of affairs; yet when
Francis, baffled and utterly routed, beat a retreat, it was with no
small reason that Shore conceived himself in danger of being consigned
to adversity. But his efforts to “make himself useful” had been so
apparent, that his services were deemed well worth securing.
The now triumphant governor, however, bore no good-will to Shore.
He did not forget that the latter had been among the allies of his
adversaries; and his nature, though in some respects great, and even
heroic, was not forgiving, any more than righteous or merciful. Yet
when he abolished the provincial councils, and instituted the Supreme
Council of Four, the first man whom he appointed to a seat in it
recommended that Shore should have the second. Hastings expressed much
astonishment at such a proposal: but his adviser answered, “Appoint
Mr. Shore, and in six weeks you and he will have formed a friendship.”
The prediction proved perfectly true; Shore held his position thus
conferred for years, and frequently had to appear as chief of the Board
during the absence of Hastings from the seat of government. He remained
in India till Hastings quitted it, in 1785, with triumphal honors. They
sailed for England in the same ship, and, during the voyage, Hastings
addressed to Shore an imitation of an ode of Horace――an occupation of
time which might not have occurred had he scented the fiery tempest
that was awaiting his arrival.
When separated from the delightful companion of his voyage, whose
conversation had been so pleasing, Shore, the ever-prosperous hero
of one maxim, had, unfortunately, no opportunity of practicing it.
His mother had died the year before, and he was thus deprived of the
pleasure which he had often looked forward to enjoying in her society.
He felt dull and solitary: he had been absent from the country for more
than sixteen years, and, doubtless, many of the old friends who had
watched his youthful career with interest and satisfaction, had sunk
into the grave. His confirmed Indian habits were not quite convenient;
he felt the want of sympathy; and, perhaps, he began to make the
appalling discovery that it is not good for man to be alone, and that
a helpmate would be particularly acceptable. At all events, as fortune
had hitherto bestowed upon him success in life, chance now threw a
little romance in his way.
His younger brother had been educated to the clerical profession,
and was at this time residing with his wife near Exeter. Thither
Shore――tired of himself, of his London friends, and of walks over
Westminster bridge before breakfast in cold November mornings――bent his
way. On arrival he found that his brother and sister-in-law were from
home; but he found full and complete consolation for their absence.
A snow-storm had detained at the house a young lady of great personal
attractions, by whom he had the felicity of being courteously received
and entertained. Their interview was fatal to any dreams of celibacy
in which Shore might have indulged. Suddenly crept around his heart
a flame which would have seemed more natural in the gay and gallant
inhabitants of places where Italian maidens lean on marble balconies
on warm nights, and listen to lovers’ tales, than in the sage and
reflecting descendant of the ancient couple, in whose memory “the Shore
trees,” sung of by Wordsworth, were planted on the summit of the Oker
Hill; and who, moreover, had just exchanged his dwelling amidst the
garden-houses of Eastern nabobs for the frost and sleet of an English
winter. But if his love was as sudden and inspiring as Romeo’s, it was
destined to be more happy in its results. Before the sun had gone down
his affections were engaged; he retired to rest, doubtless pondering
on what a day may bring forth; he was now as resolute in cultivating
his charmer’s favor, as he had formerly been in making himself useful:
ere three months had gone over she was his wife; and, during half a
century, they had cause to be grateful for the Providential snow-storm.
Within the fortnight after his marriage, Shore, perhaps for the first
time in his life, found it extremely difficult to act on the principle
which had hitherto proved so advantageous. He was offered a seat in
the Supreme Council of Three, established under Pitt’s India bill,
and requested to return to the East, where it was anticipated that
his experience would be of infinite value to Lord Cornwallis, the
newly-appointed governor. His situation was a little perplexing; but
at length he consented to forego the blessings of home for the sake
of advancing his fortunes, which were of greater consequence since
he was no longer single. He accordingly sailed from Portsmouth, and
sought refuge from his dark and distressing thoughts in a perusal of
the Company’s records. He had again abundant opportunities of proving
his industry and usefulness; and particularly employed himself in the
settlement of the revenues of Bengal, Behar, and Oresa; and in 1789,
with increased reputation but impaired health, set his foot once more
on his native soil. He took up his residence in the county where his
infancy had been spent, and appeared as a witness at the trial of
Hastings, of whose conduct he did not wholly approve; though he thought
himself bound to treat it with indulgence.
The adventures of John Shore were not yet ended. He was called upon
once more to “make himself useful,” and to reap the fruits of having
done so in times past. He had gone to Devonshire to take a long lease
of a house there, when intelligence reached him that Lord Cornwallis
had resigned his high office, and that the succession to it was within
his grasp. Pitt wished to introduce into the English empire in the
East the pacific system which he had led Parliament to enjoin, and
rightly conjectured that Shore was the man to do so with effect. The
offer, however, was so unexpected and undesired, that he at first
resolved on declining the high distinction, and hurried to London to
explain his reasons for taking such a course. On returning home and
announcing this refusal to his wife, she disinterestedly begged him to
sacrifice all domestic consideration; and thus persuaded, he declared
he saw that he must be a great man in spite of his teeth, and received
the splendid and lucrative appointment. Burke immediately protested
against the office being filled by one who had been connected with
Hastings; but the Court of Directors answered, that Shore was regarded
by their body as one of the ablest and most upright servants of the
Company. Having been previously created a baronet, he set sail in the
autumn of 1792, and after a long voyage reached, in the brilliant
capacity of Governor-general, the same town which he had once entered,
apparently in a dying state, to write for an annual salary of twelve
pounds a year, to pay an exorbitant rate for a wretched and unwholesome
lodging, and to endure poverty with the consoling assurance that if he
made himself useful he would succeed.
Soon after the arrival of Sir John Shore in India, the celebrated Sir
William Jones died; and Shore, who afterward became the biographer of
the great scholar, succeeded him in the presidency of the Asiatic
Society. On taking the chair he paid an eloquent tribute to the virtues
of his deceased friend. He took measures for the advancement of true
religion in Bengal, and was corresponding with several eminent men
on the subject when he was plunged into a war with the Rohillas――the
sequel to that sanguinary contest upon which Hastings had entered under
circumstances so unjustifiable. A single battle, however, settled the
matter.
In 1796, Sir John Shore had introduced to him no less famous a
personage than the future illustrious hero of Waterloo. On that
occasion he remarked, that if Colonel Wellesley ever had an opportunity
of distinguishing himself, he would do it greatly. It appears that Sir
John was successful in such prophetic efforts; for he is related to
have expressed a similar prediction in reference to Sir Robert Peel,
when that eminent politician was entering upon his eventful and mutable
career.
In 1797, Shore had the honor of an Irish peerage bestowed upon him;
and next year relinquished his office, and sailed for England, when he
was succeeded by the Marquis of Wellesley. The peaceful policy he had
pursued then went out of fashion; it was condemned by his successors;
and he took little concern in Indian affairs, though nominally a member
of the Board of Control, and a privy-councilor of Indian appeals.
Long after returning to his native land for the third time, after
a long, arduous, and successful career, when gliding quietly down
the stream of life, Lord Teignmouth was nominated President of the
British and Foreign Bible Society on its formation, a dignity, the
duties of which he was well fitted to discharge. He was a man of the
utmost philanthropy; and the spread of divine truth and light among
nations and people sitting in darkness was an enterprise into which he
was calculated to enter with an ardor assuredly not exhibited in his
worldly pursuits, nor displayed in his poetic effusions.
The remainder of Lord Teignmouth’s private life was that of a refined
and well-educated English gentleman. He appeared to his neighbors an
amiable, estimable, and religious man, who could hardly have cared
much for the pomp and power to which his usefulness had conducted
him. He died in peace and honor, in 1833, leaving a name which is
associated with industry, excellence, integrity, and humanity; not with
high genius, indeed, but with all those qualities of heart and soul
which give a man comfort and happiness during the days of his earthly
pilgrimage, and impart consolation to his spirit in the hour when the
lamp of life is flickering and about to expire.