JOHNSTON, Sir Alexander. 18793

£35

Description

Autograph Letter Signed, introducing Capt. Trotter of HMS Curlew who wants advice about “some pirates whom he has brought to England for having committed an act of Piracy upon some American ship”. 2 pp. 9 x 7 inches, fine. 19 Great Cumberland Place, 20 June 1834. Sir Alexander Johnston (1775 –1849), colonial official who served as third Chief Justice of Ceylon and second Advocate Fiscal of Ceylon. He introduced a range of administrative reforms in Ceylon, introducing numerous liberal ideas and supporting the rights of natives. He was also an orientalist and along with Henry Thomas Colebrooke and others he was a founding member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He was the father of Alexander Robert Johnston, the acting Administrator of Hong Kong (1841-42).