Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779 1859) was appointed through family influence to the East India Company, and arrived in India in 1796. He learnt Persian, and developed an interest in Indian literature and politics. After postings in Afghanistan and Poona he became Governor in 1819 of the recently acquired territory that became known as the Bombay Presidency. His biographer also had connections to India. Thomas Edward Colebrooke (1813 1890) was the son of British administrator and Sanskrit scholar Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765 1837), and although he lived in England and served as an M. P.,...