The last service which he rendered to Oriental literature was the foundation of the Royal Asiatic Society. He had spent a year at the Cape of Good Hope, in order to superintend some landed property which he had acquired there; and after his return to London, in 1822, he succeeded in creating a society which should do in England the work which the Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded in 1784 at Calcutta, by Sir W. Jones, had done in India. Though he declined to become the first president, he became the director of the new society. His object was not only to stimulate Oriental scholars living in England to greater exertions, but likewise to excite in the English public a more general interest in Oriental studies. There was at that time far more interest shown in France and Germany for the literature of the East than in England, though England alone possessed an Eastern Empire. Thus we find Colebrooke writing in one of his letters to Professor Wilson:-- “Schlegel, in what he said of some of us (English Orientalists) and of our labors, did not purpose to be uncandid, nor to undervalue what has been done. In your summary of what he said you set it to the right account. I am not personally acquainted with him, though in correspondence. I do think, with him, that as much has not been done by the English as might have been expected from us. Excepting you and me, and two or three more, who is there that has done anything! In England nobody cares about Oriental literature, or is likely to give the least attention to it.” And again:-- “I rejoice to learn that your great work on the Indian drama may be soon expected by us. I anticipate much gratification from a perusal. Careless and indifferent as our countrymen are, I think, nevertheless, you and I may derive some complacent feelings from the reflection that, following the footsteps of Sir W. Jones, we have, with so little aid of collaborators, and so little encouragement, opened nearly every avenue, and left it to foreigners, who are taking up the clue we have furnished, to complete the outline of what we have sketched. It is some gratification to national pride that the opportunity which the English have enjoyed has not been wholly unemployed.”