“The religion, manners, natural history, traditions, and arts of this country may, certainly, furnish subjects on which my communications might, perhaps, be not uninteresting; but to offer anything deserving of attention would require a season of leisure to collect and digest information. Engaged in public and busy scenes, my mind is wholly engrossed by the cares and duties of my station; in vain I seek, for relaxation’s sake, to direct my thoughts to other subjects; matters of business constantly recur. It is for this cause that I have occasionally apologized for a dearth of subjects, having no occurrences to relate, and the matters which occupy my attention being uninteresting as a subject of correspondence.”
When, after a time, the hope of distinguishing himself impelled Colebrooke to new exertions, and he determined to become an author, the subject which he chose was not antiquarian or philosophical, but purely practical.
“Translations,” he writes, in 1790, “are for those who rather need to fill their purses than gratify their ambition. For original compositions on Oriental history and sciences is required more reading in the literature of the East than I possess, or am likely to attain. My subject should be connected with those matters to which my attention is professionally led. One subject is, I believe, yet untouched—the agriculture of Bengal. On this I have been curious of information; and, having obtained some, I am now pursuing inquiries with some degree of regularity. I wish for your opinion, whether it would be worth while to reduce into form the information which may be obtained on a subject necessarily dry, and which (curious, perhaps) is, certainly, useless to English readers.”
Among the subjects of which he wishes to treat in this work we find some of antiquarian interest, e.g., what castes of Hindus are altogether forbid cultivating, and what castes have religious prejudices against the culture of particular articles. Others are purely technical; for instance, the question of the succession and mixture of crops. He states that the Hindus have some traditional maxims on the succession of crops to which they rigidly adhere; and with regard to mixture, he observes that two, three, or even four different articles are sown in the same field, and gathered successively, as they ripen; that they are sometimes all sown on the same day, sometimes at different periods, etc.
His letters now became more and more interesting, and they generally contain some fragments which show us how the sphere of his inquiries became more and more extended. We find (p. 39) observations on the Psylli of Egypt and the snake-charmers of India, on the Sikhs (p. 45), on human sacrifices in India (p. 46). The spirit of inquiry which had been kindled by Sir W. Jones, more particularly since the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, had evidently reached Colebrooke. It is difficult to fix the exact date when he began the study of Sanskrit. He seems to have taken it up and left it again in despair several times. In 1793 he was removed from Purneah to Nattore. From that place he sent to his father the first volumes of the “Asiatic Researches,” published by the members of the Asiatic Society. He drew his father’s attention to some articles in them, which would seem to prove that the ancient Hindus possessed a knowledge of Egypt and of the Jews, but he adds: “No historical light can be expected from Sanskrit literature; but it may, nevertheless, be curious, if not useful, to publish such of their legends as seem to resemble others known to European mythology.” The first glimmering of comparative mythology in 1793!
Again he writes in 1793, “In my Sanskrit studies, I do not confine myself now to particular subjects, but skim the surface of all their sciences. I will subjoin, for your amusement, some remarks on subjects treated in the ‘Researches.’”
What the results of that skimming were, and how far more philosophical his appreciation of Hindu literature had then become, may be seen from the end of the same letter, written from Rajshahi, December, 6, 1793:—
“Upon the whole, whatever may be the true antiquity of this nation, whether their mythology be a corruption of the pure deism we find in their books, or their deism a refinement from gross idolatry; whether their religious and moral precepts have been engrafted on the elegant philosophy of the Nyâya and Mimânsâ, or this philosophy been refined on the plainer text of the Veda; the Hindu is the most ancient nation of which we have valuable remains, and has been surpassed by none in refinement and civilization; though the utmost pitch of refinement to which it ever arrived preceded, in time, the dawn of civilization in any other nation of which we have even the name in history. The further our literary inquiries are extended here, the more vast and stupendous is the scene which opens to us; at the same time, that the true and false, the sublime and the puerile, wisdom and absurdity, are so intermixed, that, at every step, we have to smile at folly, while we admire and acknowledge the philosophical truth, though couched in obscure allegory and puerile fable.”
In 1794, Colebrooke presented to the Asiatic Society his first paper, “On the Duties of a Faithful Hindu Widow,” and he told his father at the same time, that he meant to pursue his Sanskrit inquiries diligently, and in a spirit which seems to have guided all his work through life: “The only caution,” he says, “which occurs to me is, not to hazard in publication anything crude or imperfect, which would injure my reputation as a man of letters; to avoid this, the precaution may be taken of submitting my manuscripts to private perusal.”
Colebrooke might indeed from that time have become altogether devoted to the study of Sanskrit, had not his political feelings been strongly roused by the new Charter of the East India Company, which, instead of sanctioning reforms long demanded by political economists, confirmed nearly all the old privileges of their trade. Colebrooke was a free-trader by conviction, and because he had at heart the interests both of India and of England. It is quite gratifying to find a man, generally so cold and prudent as Colebrooke, warm with indignation at the folly and injustice of the policy carried out by England with regard to her Indian subjects. He knew very well that it was personally dangerous for a covenanted servant to discuss and attack the privileges of the Company, but he felt that he ought to think and act, not merely as the servant of a commercial company, but as the servant of the British Government. He wished, even at that early time, that India should become an integral portion of the British Empire, and cease to be, as soon as possible, a mere appendage, yielding a large commercial revenue. He was encouraged in these views by Mr. Anthony Lambert, and the two friends at last decided to embody their views in a work, which they privately printed, under the title of “Remarks on the Present State of the Husbandry and Commerce of Bengal.” Colebrooke, as we know, had paid considerable attention to the subject of husbandry, and he now contributed much of the material which he had collected for a purely didactic work, to this controversial and political treatise. He is likewise responsible, and he never tried to shirk that responsibility, for most of the advanced financial theories which it contains. The volume was sent to England, and submitted to the Prime Minister of the day and several other persons of influence. It seems to have produced an impression in the quarters most concerned, but it was considered prudent to stop its further circulation on account of the dangerous free-trade principles, which it supported with powerful arguments. Colebrooke had left the discretion of publishing the work in England to his friends, and he cheerfully submitted to their decision. He himself, however, never ceased to advocate the most liberal financial opinions, and being considered by those in power in Leadenhall Street as a dangerous young man, his advancement in India became slower than it would otherwise have been.