APPENDIX III
Notes on the English Friends of Ramtanu Lahiri
Ramtanu Lahiri had, as the narrative of his life shows us, a mind so liberal, so tolerant, and so many-sided, that there was probably no Indian gentleman of his time who numbered among his intimate friends so many Englishmen. As we have given, in Appendix II., a brief account of the lives of some of his chief Indian friends, we now proceed to give a few notes on the English gentlemen who completed the circle of his friends and admirers.
1. MR DAVID HARE
We have shown in the text how great was the debt of Ramtanu, as a boy, to the kindness, and the wise insight into character, of the great pioneer of English education in Bengal, David Hare.
This philanthropist was born in Scotland, in 1775. He came to India in 1800, as a watchmaker, and a great friendship grew up between him and Rammohan Roy after the latter had settled in Calcutta. We have already in this work dwelt on his efforts to give young Bengalis a sound and thorough education in English, and the gentle and affectionate way in which he carried on this work, so we need not recur to those points here. The whole of his life spent in India he devoted to the promotion of the welfare of the people of the country. We have mentioned in the body of the book every public movement in Calcutta in which he took part, and the good offices he did to all, especially to the young; and all that now remains for us is to take the reader to the last scene of his useful life.
He, as the reader has already been told, was seized with
