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

94 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. II.

knighthood to her Indian subjects was, and ever must be, a source of deep personal gratification to myself. But to receive the congratulations of my fellow-countrymen in a manner at once so kind and flattermg,—to have this auspicious event commemorated by the creation of a charity, to be connected with my name, and in the objects of which I so cordially concur, is a source of inward pride and satisfaction, which, rising higher than the gratification of mere worldly titles, will live with me to my dying day.

“Your too kind and favourable mention of my acts of charity has much affected me. The only merit I have a right to claim for them is that they proceeded from a pure and heartfelt desire, out of the abundance with which Providence has blessed me, to ameliorate the condition of my fellow-creatures. With this no unworthy motive was mixed; I sought neither public honours nor private applause, and, conscious of a singleness of purpose, I have long since had my reward. When, therefore, Her Majesty’s most gracious intentions were communicated to me, I felt deeply gratified that I had unconsciously been the means of eliciting so signal a mark of the good feelings of England towards the people of India, and it is in this light that I prefer to consider the distinguished honour Her Majesty has conferred upon me, and that also which I have received at your hands this day.

“Nothing could please me more than the purposes to which you propose to devote the funds that have been submitted. I shall ever wish my name to be connected with every endeavour to diffuse knowledge amongst our people; and the surest way to incite them to elevate and improve themselves, to fit them to appreciate the blessings of the Government under which they live, and to deserve those honours which have now for the first time been extended to India, is to spread far and wide amongst them, gratuitously or in a cheap form, translations into our own language of the most approved authors. Connected with this subject is a scheme that I have long contemplated for relieving the distresses of the Parsi poor of Bombay, Surat, and its neighbourhood. You know full well the state of misery in which many of our people are living, and the hopeless ignorance in which their children are permitted to grow up. My object is to create