HE, in fact, Dr Smith told me, loved the people of this country and understood their language and manners in a very unusual degree. He was on terms of close friendship with Zalim Singh of Kotah, and has left a name there as honourable as in Udaipur.* His misfortune was that, in consequence of his favouring the native princes so much, the Government of Calcutta were led to suspect him of corruption, and consequently to narrow his powers and associate other officers with him in his trust, till he was disgusted and resigned his place. They are now, I believe, well satisfied that their suspicions were groundless. Captain Tod is strenuously vindicated from the charge by all the officers with whom I have conversed, and some of whom have had abundant means of knowing what the natives themselves thought of him.*
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This friendship was a source of controversy, when Kishah Singh rebelled against Zalim, and accused Tod of playing favourites. Tod’s superior, the colourful Massachusetts-born Major-general Sir David Ochterlony (1758-1825), British Resident to the Mughal court at Delhi, took the complaint as an opportunity to strip Tod of some of his responsibilities — the dislike was mutual, fuelled in part by Ochterlony’s idolising of the Mughal Emperors and Tod’s conviction that they had oppressed the Rajputs. As a consequence, Tod tended to appeal over Ochterolony’s head to Calcutta, which made things worse.
Reginald Heber was the Church of England’s Bishop of Calcutta from 1822 to his sudden death in 1826. He is best known today as the author of the hymns ‘Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning’ (1811) and ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty’ (1826).