EARLY YEARS
when the foundations of St. John's Church were being laid, the workmen uncovered the forgotten tombstone. Warren Hastings was then in the closing years of his Government, and he thought so highly of Hamilton's services to the East India Company that he desired to have the lettering of the epitaph gilded, and that the stone should be placed in a conspicuous position in the centre niche of the east entrance to the church. By the time the church had been completed Hastings had left the country, and the stone was placed within the Charnock mausoleum, where it has remained ever since. The inscription is in both English and Persian, the former runs as follows:—
"Under this stone lyes interred the body of William Hamilton, Surgeon, who departed this life the 4th December, 1717. His memory ought to be dear to this nation for the credit he gained the English in curing Farrukseer, the present King of Indostan, of a malignant distemper, by which he made his own name famous at the court of that great Monarch, and without doubt will perpetuate his memory as well in Great Britain as all other nations in Europe."
The following translation of the Persian inscription is given by Talboys Wheeler, in his "Early Records of British India:"—
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