History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. I.] A REMARKABLE ADDRESS. 93

Neither is it necessary to dwell upon the benefit which the trade of this port has derived from the enterprise and magnitude of your commercial operations, nor to point out the great extent to which you have availed yourself of the means of doing good, derived from your mercantile knowledge and experience, joined to a conciliatory disposition and the probity of your character, as well as from your position in the native community, by arranging differences and settling disputes, so as to save the parties from the evils of a tedious and expensive litigation. But we would allude to these circumstances merely to show the grounds of the high estimation in which you are universally held, and of the feelings which have induced them to express our gratification at the distinction which has been conferred upon you—a gratification which derives no small addition from the consideration of your being one of the principal members of our community.

“To commemorate this auspicious event we request your permission to apply a sum of money which we have subscribed in forming a fund to be designated ‘Sir Jamshedji Jijibhai Translation Fund,’ and to be vested in trustees for the purpose of being appropriated in defraying the expenses of translating into the Gujarati language such books from the European and Asiatic languages, whether ancient or modern, as may be approved of by the committee, to be by them published and distributed gratis, or at a low price, among the Parsi community, in furtherance of the education of our people, of which you have ever been a warm friend and zealous patron,

“We subscribe ourselves with sentiments of esteem and respect, sir, your faithful and obliged servants.”

To this address Sir Jamshedji replied :—

“My DEAR Frienps—I feel deeply gratified to you for the address which you have just presented to me. So distinguished a mark of the esteem of my fellow-countrymen is an honour of which I, and those who are most dear to me, may justly be proud.

“To have been selected by my Sovereign as the native through whom she was graciously pleased to extend the order of