he had then for ten years been continuously employed in the study of colonial questions, and had in that time 'printed and published fifty thousand volumes on India and the colonies, at a cost of 10,000l., without aid from the government or any individual,'
On 5 Dec. 1837 he presented a petition to the House of Commons for an amended colonial administrative department, and in 1839, as a member of the court of the East India Company, he was active in promoting the appointment of the commission which sat in 1840 upon the East Indian trade. Martin was a prominent witness. In 1843 he worked in Ireland on his 'Ireland and the Union.'
His energy was rewarded in January 1844 by his appointment to the office of treasurer of the newly acquired island of Hongkong, where he was also a member of the legislative council. Here he preferred to pursue his literary labours, rather to the neglect of his official duties, and his health was unsatisfactory. In May 1845 he differed from the governor on the question of raising a revenue from opium, and, being refused six months' leave, resigned in July 1845. In his reports he insisted that Hongkong was as a British colony doomed to failure.
After making several unsuccessful efforts to induce the secretary of state to reinstate him, Martin appears to have settled down to a literary life near London. But in 1851 he went to Jamaica on a mission to report on the affairs of two mining companies operating in that colony. He was one of the original members of the East India Association, founded in 1866. He died at Wellesley Lodge, Sutton, Surrey, on 6 Sept. 1868.
His chief works were:
- 'The History of the British Colonies,' 5 vols., completed in 1831 (but not published till 1834).
- 'Political, Commercial, and Financial Condition of the Anglo-Eastern Empire,' 1832.
- 'British Relations with the Chinese Empire,' 1832.
- 'Analysis of the Parliamentary Evidence on the China Trade,' 1832.
- 'Ireland as it was, is, and ought to be,' 1833.
- 'Past and Present State of the Tea Trade,' 1833.
- 'East and West India Sugar Duties,' 1833.
- 'Poor Laws for Ireland, a Measure of Justice for England,' 1833.
- 'Taxation of the British Empire,' 1833-4.
- 'Analysis of Parliamentary Evidence on the Handloom Weavers,' 1834-5.
- 'The Marquis of Wellesley's Indian Despatches,' 5 vols. 1830.
- 'Analysis of the Bible' (afterwards translated into' the Chinese), 1836.
- 'The British Colonial Library,' 10 vols, (a new edition of the 'History of the British Colonies'), 1837.
- 'The Colonial Policy of the British Empire,' pt. i. Government, 1837.
- 'History of the Antiquities of Eastern India,' 3 vols. 1838.
- 'The Statistics of the British Colonies,' 1839.
- 'The Marquis of Wellesley's Spanish Despatches,' 1840.
- 'The Monetary System of British India,' 1841.
- 'Ireland before and after the Union,' 1844; 2nd edit, in 1848.
- 'Steam Navigation with Australia,' 1847.
- 'China, Political, Commercial, and Social,' 2 vols. 1847.
- 'Free Trade in Sugar,' 1848.
- 'The Hudson's Bay Territories and Vancouver's Island,' 1849.
- 'The Indian Empire '(richly illustrated), 5 vols. 1857.
- 'The Rise and ^Progress of the Indian Mutiny,' 1859.
- 'Sovereigns of the Coorg' (pamphlet), 1867.
[Martin's evidence before the parliamentary committee on East India trade, 1840; his petition and the correspondence presented to parliament in 1847; an interesting letter in the Record Office, 1825; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. iii. 408, 477; his Works; private inquiry]
MARTIN, SAMUEL (1817–1878), congregational minister, the son of William Martin, a shipwright, was born at Woolwich, 28 April 1817. He received in youth religious instruction from the Rev. Thomas James of Salem Chapel, Woolwich. But in 1829 he went to London to be trained as an architect, and while living in 1832 in the family of Mr. Sutor, one of the partners in the firm of his employers, joined the established church. In September 1835 he threw up his profession and returned to Woolwich. After pursuing his studies in classics and theology he applied, in March 1836, to the London Missionary Society (congregationalist) for work in India, and entered Western College, Exeter, in the following August. In December 1838 he was appointed to a station at Chittúr in Madras, but in the following February the directors of the society decided that he was physically unfit for foreign work, and he accepted the charge of Highbury Chapel, Cheltenham. During the three years of his ministry there the congregation was increased fourfold, and a large debt discharged. In 1841 the Metropolitan Chapel Building Association built a new chapel in Westminster on the site of the old hospital, and in the following year Martin accepted the pastorate. His eloquence and steady devotion to his work attracted a large congregation, and he speedily became one of the leading ministers among the congregationalists. In 1855 he declined an invitation to the Pitt Street Church, Sydney, New South Wales. In 1862 he was elected chairman of the Congregational Union. The next year the rapid increase of the congregations made it necessary to rebuild the chapel and provide sittings
