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    Letter L Eltham , June 19 , 1823 . Str , I have perused with interest the several papers respecting Rammohun

    Boy , which have occasionally appeared in the Monthly Repository , and being * desirous to further the object of their insertion therein , am induced to trouble you with what follows .

    A relation of mine , who for some years filled a high and important official situation at Calcutta , was acquainted with Raromohun Ro * y , and I lately read to him the preface of " The Precepts of Jesus a [ the ] Guide to { "Peace and ] Happiness / ' which bears

    his name as its author . My relation observed first , that it is not fact ( as asserted in pages 2 and 3 of the preface ) , that ** the knowledge of Sanscrit is indispensable to the caste and profession of a Brahmin , " and said that thousands of Brahmins were

    altogether ignorant of it . " The Dewan , " he said , " is not , " ( as described in page 3 ) , " chief native officer in the collection of the revenues , but a kind of steward to a private gentleman . " About the time when he is said to

    have become Dewan , i . e . in 1814 or a little earlier , my relation knew him , and says that he possessed but the merest smattering of the English language ; and though he allows him to have been perhaps the most intelligent of all the natives with whom he ever conversed or had any thing to do , considers his intellect as far below

    the standard of a moderate European intellect , and altogether decidedly unequal to the acquirement of our language in the degree of perfection which is necessary for criticism , translation , or controversy . His * age too , at the time , was beyond the period

    when people acquire languages with facility . And moreover , he did not appear to him to have a remarkable talent for their acquisition , but the contrary ; and , considering his advantages , spoke our language much worse

    than he ought , or might reasonably have been expected , to do . Considering these circumstances , and how soon afterwards he is represented as the author of several learned works , it is incredible to my relation that he

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    was or could ever be the author of such productions : and that he should have entered into controversy with Dr . Marshman , and have converted either him or any missionary of ? good talent to Unitarianism or any other faith , is still more wonderful and incredible to him .

    He regards the whole as either a fabrication by persons whose zeal to further their objects has carried them to the length of imposing upon the ignorance of people in this country their own productions , with the additional weight which would be due to

    them from the pen of a native author of them ; or that if Rammohun Roy have any hand in them , he must have received assistance from Europeans , equivalent to their having written them almost entirely themselves . As to the character of Rammohun .

    my relation regards him as a man who would not scruple for a sufficient bribe , to lend his name to any publication whatever . Now , Sir , the high estimation in > which I hold the talents and integrity

    of my relation obliges me to listen to his testimony . At the same tima > I cannot in any manner satisfactorily account for the Baptist Missionary Society having acknowledged and

    complained of the conversion of their missionary , ( Dr . Marshman , I believe is it not ?) by Rammohun Roy , on any other ground excepting that of his being really the author of the works attributed to him . For the

    missionary could not be deceived in this . His own jealousy as well as that of the Society of Baptists would have detected the above-mentioned imposition had it been attempted . " But who" ( urges my friend ) " are the persons that report these extraordinary facts , that I should yield my own experience to their testimony ? Why am I to believe an incredible story upon the testimony of anonymous writers in a periodical pamphlet V

    If this testimony can be better establis ]( i | d than it has hitherto been ; if any more particular proof that Rammohun Roy is the real and not the fictitious author of the writings

    attributed to him ; that he is of respectable character ; that he really did convert the missionary - and that a missionary was in fact converted by *

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    440 Correspondence with the Editor relating to Rammohun Roy .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1823, page 440, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1787/page/8/