Indian Antiquary Vol 40

SR No.: 032532
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 388
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 287

OCTOBER, 1911.)
GOVERNOR RICHARD BOUROHIER
273
authorised to carry out with him 2,0001 in foreign ballion. He seems now to have engaged in what was termed the country trade,' i. e., from port to port in the East. Ia Jane, 1721, he wrote from Gombroon (Bandar Abbas) to the Company, complaining of his treatment by the Agent there ; while a Madras list of 1724 includes his name among the seafaring people in Bengall service.'
In 1725 Bourchier was at home, and (doubtless at the instance of his friends) was appointed (December 31) by the Directors Sixth in Council at Fort William in Bengal. He reached Calcutta on July 6, 1726, and was made Export Warehouse Keeper (and Member of Conncil) at 401. per annum. This post le retained for six years, and then came a sudden blow. In July, 1782, arrived a letter from the Court of Directors, dismissing President Deane (who, however, had already relinquished office) and most of his Council, for sending home goods of an unsatisfactory quality. Bourchier thus found himself thrust out of office at a time when he had reached the rank of Second in Council and might reasonably look forward to becoming in his turn the President and Governor of Fort William.
Of the events of the next few years we know little; but it is certain that Bourchier remained in Calcutta and that at some unascertained date he was appointed Master Attendant there. A Calcutta tradition-preserved by Asiaticus in his Ecclesiastical and Historical Sketches respecting Bengal--ascribed to him the building of the Charity School House (which afterwards became the home, first of the Mayor's Court and then, for a time, of the Supreme Court); and this, it was said, he made over to the East India Company on condition that a sala of Rs. 4,000 was paid annually in return to sapport a Charity School and for other benevolent purposes. The tradition has, however, been shown by Archdeacon Hyde (Parochial Annals of Bengal, p. 91) to be erroneous, though it is possible that Bourchier contributed generously to the foundation of the Charity Schocl (about 1731).
Evidently Bourchier had powerful friends in London, for, on February 18, 1743, the Court of Directors, at the instance of his uncle, George Harrison, appointed him to succeed Mr. Whitehill as Chief of Anjengo, on the Malabar Coast-one of the best posts in the Western Presidency. This decision was communicated to Bourchier by the Bengal Council on August 4, and on December 5(having presumably spent the interim in winding ap his affairs at Calcutta) he resigned the post of Master Attendant. He took up his appointment at Anjengo a few months later, and for the next five years we hear little of him. One little point may, however, be mentioned. He must have been acquainted with Sterne's Eliza,' who was born at Anjengo in April, 1744, and the acquaintance was doubtless renewed when in 1758 she married Daniel Draper, then Secretary to the Bombay Government.
It would seem that Bourchier's management of affairs at Anjengo gave satisfaction to the Directors, for on March 15th, 1749, they wrote to Bombay appointing him second in Council there, and directing him to proceed at once to the Presidency to take up his new post. In November, 1750, he succeeded Mr. Wake as President and Governor of Bombay and held the office until February, 1760-a period of rather more than nine years. The chief event of his governorship was the capture of Gheria froun Tulaji Angria by Clive and Watson. Clive, by the way, complained bitterly of the way in which he had been treated by Bourchier, who had onnitted to consult him in the case of a court martial upon a military officer ; but his reraonstrance only provoked & severe snab from the Governor and Council.
Bourcbier went home in 1760, and apparently settled in Sussex. In his later years, it would seem, financial misfortunes overtook him, for he is stated to have died penniless and insolvent. According to the London Najazine for 1775 (p. 612), the date of his decease was December 4 of that year.