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

112 AISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. II.

business as a merchant in the year 1790, and in 1795 had become agent for the Honourable Hast India Company. From an early age he showed high capacity for business, and during half a century he was one of the most enlightened, energetic, and honourable merchants. But his name will chiefly be remembered on account of his benevolence and high character as a citizen, and for his zealous and: indefatigable exertions for the promotion of the moral and physical improvement of his countrymen. He was one of the most active of those who shared or assisted in the educational movement during the administration of the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone. He was a member for many years of the late Board of Education, to which had been entrusted by Government the direction of education in Western India. On his death, which occurred in the year 1851, the Board, of which Sir Erskine Perry, Chief-Justice of Her Majesty's Supreme Court at Bombay, was president, expressed themselves to Government as follows :—“ Framji Kavasji, Esquire, resigned his seat, im consequence of his advanced time of life. The eminent and good citizenship, and zeal in supporting every measure for public improvement, which distinguished our late much esteemed colleague, are too well known to your Lordship in council to need any notice from us, but in recording his death, which subsequently

occurred, the Board feel a melancholy pleasure in