Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family RecordAusten-Leigh, William
General
Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record
Austen-Leigh, William
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817; Austen, Jane, 1775-1817 -- Family; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Family relationships
Philadelphia reached Madras on August 4, 1752. It is probable that in
those days no girl was long in India without receiving offers of
marriage. In fact, Dr. Hancock writing twenty years later, to deprecate
his daughter's coming out to India, says to Philadelphia 'You know very
well that no girl, tho' but fourteen years old, can arrive in India
without attracting the notice of every coxcomb in the place; you
yourself know how impossible it is for a young girl to avoid being
attached to a young handsome man whose address is agreeable to her.' If
there _was_ any handsome young man in Philadelphia's case, it was
probably not Mr. Hancock, who must have been forty or more when he
married her at Cuddalore on February 22, 1753. The name of Tysoe Saul
Hancock appears in the list of European inhabitants at Fort St. David
for 1753, as surgeon, at L36 per annum; and at Fort St. David he and
Philadelphia remained for three years after their marriage. Where the
Hancocks were during the troublous times which began in 1757 is not
known; but by the beginning of 1762 they were certainly in Calcutta, for
their daughter Elizabeth--better known as Betsy--was born there in
December 1761. Warren Hastings, at this time resident at Murshidabad,
was godfather to Elizabeth, who received the name he had intended to
give to his own infant daughter. The origin of the close intimacy that
existed between the Hancocks and Warren Hastings is uncertain; but if
Mary Elliott really became the wife of the latter, the friendship of the
two women may perhaps explain the great obligation under which Hastings
describes himself as being to Philadelphia.
The news of the death of his little son was the first thing Hastings
heard on landing in England in 1765, and we are told it left a shadow on
his face for years. He seems always to have been especially fond of
children, and his intimate friends knew they could give no greater
pleasure than by informing him of the welfare of his favourites, or by
sending messages to them. Thus Marriott, writing to Hastings from India
on August 15, 1765, sends his kisses and salaam to 'little ("_great_" I
believe I should say) Betsy Hancock,' and a 'good hearty shake by the
hand to George; I suppose if I were to go to kiss him he would give me
a box on the ears.--Write me particularly how these little ones go.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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