Twelve years after the visit of Admiral Watson, James Forbes reached Bombay as a writer in the Company's service, and he gives us a graphic account of the daily life in the settlement, at the beginning of the last century. Early rising prevailed throughout the Presidency. " The morning was then dedicated to business ; everybody dined at one o'clock ; on breaking up, the Company went to their respective houses to enjoy a siesta, and return after a walk or ride in the country to pass the remainder of the evening and sup where they had dined." Forbes pays a handsome tribute to the character of his countrymen in exile. " In private life they are generous, kind, and hospitable ; in their public situations, when called forth to arduous enterprise, they conduct themselves with skill and management ; and whether presiding at the helm of the political and commer cial department, or spreading the glory of the British arms with courage, moderation, and clemency, the annals of Hindustan will transmit to future ages names dear to fame and deserving the applause of Europe." When Forbes landed at Bombay, " comfort, hospitality, and urbanity," he states, characterized the settlement ; and all who have had the privilege of visiting the island will bear willing testimony that in one respect Bombay has not altered.
A commanding feature in the view of Bombay Green presented in the Oriental Memoirs is the church. On the arrival of Richard Cobbe as chaplain to the island, he found that services were held in a room in the fort ; and, in a sermon preached on the First Sunday after Trinity, he im pressed on his congregation the necessity of a suitable church.
" Well, Doctor," said the Governor after the service, " you have been very zealous for the church this morning." " Please, yr Honour," he replied, " I think there was occasion for it, and I hope without offence." " Well, then," said the Governor, " if we must have a church, we must have a church. Do you see and get a book made, and see what every one will contribute towards it, and I will do first." Cobbe himself gave Rs. 1,427 ; Cornelius Toddington gave " For my wife when I have her," Rs. 20 ; and Mr. Richard Walters, Rs. 11, paid him for doing the service in absence of the chaplain. A commutation from penance corporal at Surat was Rs. 15o. A substantial sum was collected, and on November 18, 1718, the foundation stone of the church was laid. Three years after, on Christmas Day, it was opened. The Governor went in procession, and was met at the en trance by the chaplain in his canonical dress. During the service a child was baptized, the Governor, Mrs. Parker (the Deputy-Governor's wife) and Mrs. Crommelin " standing Gossips." When the service was concluded the Governor, his Council, and the ladies repaired to the vestry, where they drank success to the new church in a glass of sack. The church was prosperous under the vigorous ministration of Cobbe, but the man whose strong will and inflexible purpose established it, could not move in the regular official routine and keep the waters smooth. Mr. Braddyll, Member of Council, complained that Mr. Cobbe had " affronted him at the Communion Table, when he was going to receive the Holy Sacrament, and he had likewise affronted him publicly several times before." From the letter which Mr. Braddyll wrote to the President and Governor of Bombay and Council it can be gathered that Mr. Cobbe had frequently complained about his employing workmen on Sunday, and that the Member of Council had advanced the plea of necessity. The quarrel culminated in the following occurrence :— " After the congregation, of which I happened to be one, had placed themselves at the altar in a posture for receiving the Communion, Mr. Cobbe having consecrated the elements, turned himself towards me and spoke with a loud voice, and said, Mr. Braddyll ' ; to which I made no answer, thinking him to be out of his senses ; but he repeated it a second time, and said, Mr. Braddyll, have you done working on Sundays ? unless
yt, I cannot administer you this Sacrament.' To the best of my remembrance I told him I had. He went still further, and said he would not give me Communion unless I would promise him and the congregation then present that I would work no more on Sundays. I told him I would not unless necessity obliged me, upon which he condescended to treat me like ye rest of the community." The Board demanded an explanation of his conduct from the Chaplain, and he replied " that he was sorry to find that a person in Mr. Braddyll's station should, instead of being ashamed, make it a matter of complaint for a reproof of a sin so exceeding sinfull, but is God Almighty less in India than He is in England ? Or has He given any man license to sin ? Is the violation of this holy day become the less enormous, because it is so frequently and irreligiously profaned, or must it out of good manners be past by unobserved, connived and winked at, especially when it comes from so eminent a quarter ? " The Board came to the conclusion " that the second Rubric," from which the Chaplain based his defence, did not apply to the case, as it referred only to " an open and notorious evil liver," and they " ordered Mr. Richard Cobbe to ask Mr. Braddyll pardon publickly in the church on Sunday morning next immediately after in the following words : ' Where as, on Sunday the 3rd instant, through mistake, I did affront Mr. Braddyll at the Communion Table, I do hereby notify to this congregation here present, that on more mature considera tion I find myself to be in the wrong, and do hereby beg Mr. Braddyll's pardon for the injury done him and the offence given him and to the other communicants.' " Mr. Cobbe refused compliance with the Council's order for two reasons : firstly, because according to the rubric after the Nicene Creed nothing is to be proclaimed during the time of Divine service " but what is prescribed in the rules of the Book of Common Prayer or enjoined by the Queen or by the ordinary of the place " ; and secondly, because such compliance " would not only give encourage ment to them by lessening too much the credit of reproof, but inevitably draw contempt upon the clergy, and wound even religion through the sides of the ministry." He con cluded the letter with these words : " For this, therefore, I hope, gentlemen, you will pardon your servant in that I cannot, I dare not, yield my assent without declining that duty, without betraying that trust, for which I am account able to a more awfull tribunal." Mr. Cobbe, however, offered to give Mr. Braddyll any satisfaction he could, except what the Board had ordered. But the Board refused to listen to any compromise, and proceeded to review his past conduct. Notice was taken of a sermon that he had preached at the members of the Government from the text, " Though hand joyn in hand, yet the wicked shall not go unpunished," and the Board declared that it was " but too notorious and usual with him to draw odious characters in the sermons and apply them to such persons with whom he has any difference. . . . In order, therefore, to secure this Govern ment against the evils which such seditious sermons and discord may possibly have on the minds of some people, especially at this time of actual warr with one enemy, and an apprehension of a rupture with our neighbours the Portu guese, when there is all the need imaginable of union and firm resolution, it was resolved that Mr. Richard Cobbe, Chaplain, be suspended from the Right Honble Company's service and from officiating as their chaplain, receiving no further salary or other allowances of the Right Honble Company from this day." Cobbe returned to England, and lived to a ripe old age, and in the decline of life wrote an account of the church which he founded, now the cathedral of a vast diocese.