Truths. Prodosh Aich

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СКАЧАТЬ of an ensign. By 1790, he becomes aware that even with full pay he would continue to be just a ‘Subaltern’ in the infantry. In view of this despairing perspective, he looks out for a “more civilian” work. “Historians” and biographers should have taken note of the real situation. How could an ensign – who was not even on his full salary – afford an Indian “Pandit” (learned persons) to learn the Sanskrit language? Besides, doesn’t the shaky simple English with grammatical and syntactic errors in his application speak for itself?

      We have read his application repeatedly in order to be fair to Alexander Hamilton. He doesn’t show off, he is not a cheat, he is not a swindler. In his simplicity, he just becomes a victim of “gossips” on and about Charles Wilkins, that he made a remarkable career only because he had learned the Sanskrit language. And on ‘ample Salary', of course. Europeans in India were money obsessed. So, all those on top there would draw ‚ample Salary’.

      We shall deal also with Charles Wilkins in due course. Alexander Hamilton couldn’t possibly have known Charles Wilkins personally in Kolkata. Otherwise he wouldn’t have referred to him wrongly, nor repeatedly referred to ‘court of Directors’, ‘ample Salary’, ‘crisis of last war’, ‘enable him to prosecute that study’, ‘letter from their Chairman’ ,‘congratulating that gentleman’ in connection with Charles Wilkins. These were rather rumours in the air after Charles Wilkins had left Kolkata in 1786.

      It is indeed remarkable that Alexander Hamilton did not apply for “funds” for his study of “Sanskrit” – learning the Sanskrit language without private teachers (Pandits) was not feasible – and, applied only to be freed from ordinary routine service. He wanted to take the burden of the private teacher himself. Or he didn’t know yet that he needed a private teacher to learn the Sanskrit language. Does that mean something? What does it mean?

      In October 1790, he leaves the army. We are unable to judge whether his decision to leave the army was desperate or courageous or triggered by some realistic desire for a “more civilian” life. The resignation meant also no regular earnings. What does he do? What could he do?

      It is certain that he does not get a job as a “writer”, nor works for a business subsidiary in Bengal. In such a case, his name would have been listed in one of the various “registers” in Kolkata. It is beyond doubt that he had not been a regular resident of Kolkata since 1792. If he stayed in India, he would have appeared in one of the “registers” for sure. This is not the case. The other issue is that there is no evidence showing that he returned to England. Does that mean something? What does it mean?

      *****

      Helmine von Hastfer, we remember her, lived in 1803 in the house of Dorothea and Friedrich von Schlegel in Paris. Alexander Hamilton lived there too. Rosane Rocher, the only biographer of Alexander Hamilton, has tried to establish with the help of two quotations by Helmine de Chèzy that Alexander Hamilton was married in Kolkata (p. 10):

      “In an often quoted passage from her autobiography (p. 270, 2nd volume, Leipzig 1858), she says: ‘The famous Indianist Hamilton who lived many years long in East India and had a native woman as wife and a hopeful son there.’ But she gives much more detailed information in one of her other writings, which is less known (p.86, Freihafen III, 4, 1840): ‘His heart had remained in India, where tender, holy bond made him happy for thirteen years long, he had taken a native for marriage, and a son of her, often he spoke of his bond with this sweet creature, with that, I would like to say, ashamedly emotion and tenderness, which was like an emblem of authenticity of a deep feeling.’”

      Rosane Rocher takes these two quotations to construct that Alexander Hamilton was married for 13 years, before he left India. Then she applies her skill and art of reckoning. He could not have reached India before the end of 1783, she maintains. Thereafter he needed some time to marry an Indian woman, so Rosane Rocher. Then she concludes with her inimitable precision that he could not have left India before 1797. We could better quote Rosane Rocher than arouse suspicions that we are distorting her writing (p. 10):

      ”The important element in this passage is that, according to Helmine von Chezy, Hamilton would have been married for thirteen years before he left India. Assuming that he could not have come to India before the end of 1783 (Why 1783? What should he have done in Kolkata without resources before he became ensign at the beginning of 1785? She does not put these or similar questions.), and allowing some time before he decided to marry an Indian woman, one may conclude that he cannot have left India before the year 1797. It is the more interesting to arrive at the year 1797 as the terminus post quem for his departure from India, because the year 1797 at the same time is the terminus post quem given by another source for his arrival in Edinburgh. Indeed, according to a statement of Lord Cockburn: ‘In particular, between 1797 and 1800, some conspicuous young men had come to Edinburgh, to whom, being strangers, the merits of Jeffrey were more apparent than they hitherto had been to many of those among whom he dwelt. Some of these have been already named in mentioning the Speculative Society ... In addition to these were Lord Webb Seymour, Mr. Sydney Smith and Mr. Hamilton, also strangers.’”

      We don’t feel an urge to raise here our standard question whether Rosane Rocher cared to check how Lord Cockburn arrived at this conclusion in 1852. However, we must confess that we are dumbfounded by these acrobatics. We read the quotations of Helmine de Chézy again and again to find the alleged statement that Alexander Hamilton had lived together with his Indian wife for thirteen years and had left behind a grown up son. It may be, we don’t possess enough fantasy not to read again and again the simple statement: Alexander Hamilton missed his native wife and his son also after 13 years and he kept them in memory. Accordingly, he, most probably, had to leave behind his “wife” and son in 1791 or 1792 in India. This wouldn’t be a singular case. It was a question of material survival. The left–behinds did get a name too, the “Anglo-Indians”. Rosane Rocher could also have wondered as we do, why Alexander Hamilton didn’t call his family to Great Britain after he became a “great and famous scholar”.

      We are also astonished to note how insolently “history” is being forged. Rosane Rocher completed this “reconstruction” in the first ten pages of her book of 128 pages. Then on pages 11–33 under the subtitle: “Great Britain: The first publications” she ascribed to Alexander Hamilton as many anonymous articles published in the Edinburgh Review and in Asiatic Annual Register as she needed to make in a learned way a great and famous scholar out of him. In the following pages wondrous metamorphoses occur. All shaky speculations and forgeries connected with his biography become hard facts. Not only for Rosane Rocher who dealt in the pages 11 ff. with “facts” only.

      That was just what other “historiographers” were waiting for. A classic example of how (hi)stories are “made” in the “wonder that is” modern scientific culture. We mean example and not a singular case of making “scholar extraordinary”.

      Hard to believe, but unfortunately true. We read on page 33 of that well-known book that appeared in 1997 in the University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London. Title: Aryans and British India. Author: Thomas R. Trautmann, a professor at the University of Michigan, a favourite pupil of the renowned “historian” Arthur Llewellyn Basham (highlighted by us):

       “...the Orientalist Alexander Hamilton reviews A journey from Madras, through the countries Mysore, Canara and СКАЧАТЬ