A resolution, which had passed the Board of the Executive Government of Bengal, for altering the mode of paying the salaries of the judges, produced from him a very spirited remonstrance. The affair, however, seems to have been misconceived by himself and his brethren on the Bench; and on its being explained the usual harmony was restored. At the commencement of 1786, while this matter was pending, he made a voyage to Chatigan, the boundary of the British dominions in Bengal towards the east. In this "Indian Montpelier," where he describes "the hillocks covered with pepper vines, and sparkling with blossoms of the coffee tree," in addition to his other literary researches he twice perused the poem of Ferdausi, consisting of above sixty thousand couplets. This he considered to be an epic poem as majestic and entire as the Iliad; and thought the outline of it related to a single hero, Khosrau, (the Cyrus of Herodotus and Xenophon), whom, as he says, "the Asiaticks, conversing with the Father of European History, described according to their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet could not express." A nearer acquaintance with the great epic bard of Persia had now taught him therefore to retract the assertion he had made in his Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, that "the hero, as it is called, of the poem, was that well known Hercules of the Persians, named Rustem; although there are several other heroes, or warriors, to each of whom their own particular glory is assigned." At the time of writing this, he had an intention, if leisure should be allowed him, of translating the whole work. A version of Ferdausi, either in verse unfettered by rhyme, or in such numerous prose as the prophetical parts of the Bible are translated into, would, I think, be the most valuable transfer that our language is now capable of receiving from foreign tongues. In 1787 he flattered himself that his constitution had overcome the climate; but his apprehensions were awakened for the health of Lady Jones, to which it had been yet more unfavourable; and he resolved, if some amendment did not appear likely, to urge her return to her native country; preferring, he said, the pang of separation for five or six years, to the anguish, which he should hardly survive, of losing her. At the beginning of 1789 appeared the first volume of the Society's Researches, selected by the President. Two other volumes followed during his life-time, and a fourth was ready for the press at the time of his decease. In the same year he published his version of an Indian drama of Calidas, entitled Sancontala, or the Fatal Ring; a wild and beautiful composition, which makes us desire to see more by the same writer, who has been termed the Shakspeare of India, and who lived in the last century before the Christian era. The doubts suggested by the critics in England, concerning the authenticity of this work, he considered as scarcely deserving of a serious reply.