The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)Dent, John Charles
History
The Canadian Portrait Gallery - Volume 3 (of 4)
Dent, John Charles
Canada -- Biography
We can only afford space for a brief glance at his previous career, but
even that brief glance will be sufficient to show how little sympathy he
could be expected to have in colonial schemes of Responsible Government.
He was born at Calcutta, on Sunday, the 30th of January, 1785, a few
days before Warren Hastings ceased to be Governor-General of India. His
father, Major Theophilus Metcalfe, of the Bengal army, was a gentleman
of ample fortune, and a Director in the East India Company. Charles was
the second son of his parents, and was destined at an early age for the
Company's service. He was educated first at a private school at Bromley,
in Middlesex, and afterwards at Eton College, where he remained until he
had entered upon his sixteenth year, when he returned to India. He was
appointed to a writership in the service of the Company, wherein for
seven years he filled various offices, and in 1808 was selected by Lord
Minto to take charge of a difficult mission to the Court of Lahore, the
object of which was to secure the Sikh States, between the Sutlej and
Jumna Rivers, from the grasp of Runjeet Singh. In this mission he fully
succeeded, the treaty being concluded in 1809. He subsequently filled
several other high offices of trust, and in 1827 took his seat as a
member of the Supreme Council of India. Both his father and elder
brother had meanwhile died, and he had become Sir Charles Metcalfe.
In 1835, upon Lord W. Bentinck's resignation, Sir Charles Metcalfe was
provisionally appointed Governor-General, which office he held until
Lord Auckland's arrival in the year following. During this short period
he effected many bold and popular reforms, not the least of which was
the liberation of the press of India from all restrictions. Under his
immediate predecessor, Lord William Bentinck, the press had been as free
as it is in England; but there were still certain laws or orders of a
severe character, which at the pleasure of any future Governor might be
called into operation. These Sir Charles Metcalfe repealed. His doing so
gave umbrage to the Directors, and caused his resignation and return to
Europe, when he was appointed Governor of Jamaica. The difficult duties
of this position--the emancipation of the negroes having but recently
occurred--were discharged by him to the satisfaction of the Government
and the colonists. After over two years' residence the climate proved so
unfavourable to his health that he was compelled to resign. The painful
disease of which he afterwards died--cancer of the cheek--had seized him
in a firm grip. Years before this time, when residing at Calcutta, a
friend had one day noticed a red spot upon his cheek, and underneath it
a single drop of blood. The blood was wiped away; the red spot remained.
For a long while it occasioned neither pain nor anxiety. A little time
after his departure from India, disquieting symptoms appeared, and on
his arrival in England he had consulted Sir Benjamin Brodie; but it was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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