He had made many friends already among the English people; one of these was Mr. William Chambers, an important official to the East India Company and a man of great character and ability. He was a master of Oriental languages and took a deep interest in missionary work as a corresponding member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. So close was his intimacy with Schwartz that he had intended to write an account of his life and labours, but this was cut short by his death and so only a fragment of rough notes is left. From this, however, we gain some interesting particulars of the mission, and, particularly, the only glimpse of the striking personality, as Mr. Chambers knew him, of Schwartz at this time. He explains in this fragment of biography that he first made his acquaintance with Schwartz when on a visit to Trichinopoly from Madras in order that he might perfect his knowledge of Tamil and Persian, and during a prolonged stay, in a season of ill health, he came in very intimate touch with the missionary who was so well qualified to help him with those languages. Besides this reason, however, he had a desire by personal inquiry to estimate the value of the work in which Schwartz was engaged. “I had often heard mentioned,” he writes, “of Mr. Schwartz before I went thither, as a man of great zeal and piety, and of considerable attainments in the language of the country, but as these accounts were in general given me by those who viewed the excellence of a religious character through the medium of popular prejudice, my ideas of him were very imperfect, and as I myself had then scarcely any better rule of judgment, a preconceived notion of great strictness and austerity had mixed itself with everything I had heard in his praise. The first sight of him, however, made a complete revolution in my mind as to this point. His garb, indeed, which was pretty well worn, seemed foreign and old-fashioned, but in every other respect his appearance was the reverse of all that could be called forbidding or morose. Picture to yourself a stout well made man, somewhat about the middle age, erect in his carriage and address, with a complexion rather dark, though healthy, black curled hair and a manly engaging countenance, expressive of unaffected candour, ingenuousness and benevolence, and you will have an idea of what Mr. Schwartz appeared to be at first sight. During the intimacy which I had afterwards the happiness to contract with him I learnt his past history.”