Page:EB1911 - Volume 17.djvu/502

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MALCOLM, SIR J.—MALDEN
485

Scot obeyed, and calling at Durham on his southward journey was present at the foundation of Durham Cathedral. When he reached Gloucester Rufus refused to receive him unless he did homage for his kingdom; he declined and returned home in high dudgeon. Almost at once he invaded Northumbria, and was killed at a place afterwards called Malcolm’s Cross, near Alnwick, on the 13th of November 1093. Four of Malcolm’s sons, Duncan II., Edgar, Alexander I., and David I., became kings of Scotland; and one of his daughters, Matilda, became the wife of Henry I. of England, a marriage which united the Saxon and the Norman royal houses.

Malcolm IV. (c. 1141–1165) was the eldest son of Henry, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1152), son of King David I., and succeeded his grandfather David as king of Scotland in 1153. He is called the “Maiden,” and died unmarried on the 9th of December 1165.

See E. A. Freeman, The Norman Conquest, vols. iv. and v. (1867–1879), and The Reign of William Rufus (1882); W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland (1876–1880); E. W. Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings (1862); and A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. i. (1900).

MALCOLM, SIR JOHN (1769–1833), Anglo-Indian soldier, diplomatist, administrator and author, was born at Burnfoot on the Esk, near Langholm, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, on the 2nd of May 1769. His father was a humble farmer, but three of his sons attained the honour of knighthood. At the age of twelve he received a cadetship in the Indian army, and in April 1783 he landed at Madras, shortly afterwards joining his regiment at Vellore. In 1792, having for some time devoted himself to the study of Persian, he was appointed to the staff of Lord Cornwallis as Persian interpreter, but two years afterwards was compelled by ill health to leave for England. On his return to India in 1796 he became military secretary to Sir Alured Clarke, commander-in-chief at Madras, and afterwards to his successor General Harris; and in 1798 he was appointed by Lord Wellesley assistant to the resident at Hyderabad. In the last-mentioned capacity he highly distinguished himself by the manner in which he gave effect to the difficult measure of disbanding the French corps in the pay of the nizam. In 1799, under the walls of Seringapatam, began his intimacy with Colonel Arthur Wellesley, which in a short time ripened into a life-long friendship. In the course of the same year he acted as first secretary to the commission appointed to settle the Mysore government, and before its close he was appointed by Lord Wellesley to proceed as envoy to the court of Persia for the purpose of counteracting the policy of the French by inducing that country to form a British alliance. Arriving at Teheran in December 1800, he was successful in negotiating favourable treaties, both political and commercial, and returned to Bombay by way of Bagdad in May 1801. He now for some time held the interim post of private secretary to Lord Wellesley, and in 1803 was appointed to the Mysore residency. At the close of the Mahratta War, in 1804, and again in 1805, he negotiated important treaties with Sindhia and Holkar, and in 1806, besides seeing the arrangements arising out of these alliances carried out, he directed the difficult work of reducing the immense body of irregular native troops. In 1808 he was again sent on a mission to Persia, but circumstances prevented him from getting beyond Bushire; on his reappointment in 1810, he was successful indeed in procuring a favourable reception at court, but otherwise his embassy, if the information which he afterwards incorporated in his works on Persia be left out of account, was (through no fault of his) without any substantial result. He sailed for England in 1811, and shortly after his arrival in the following year was knighted. His intervals of leisure he devoted to literary work, and especially to the composition of a History of Persia, which was published in two quarto volumes in 1815. On his return to India in 1817 he was appointed by Lord Moira his political agent in the Deccan, with eligibility for military command; as brigadier-general under Sir T. Hislop he took a distinguished part in the victory of Mehidpur (December 21, 1817), as also in the subsequent work of following up the fugitives, determining the conditions of peace and settling the country. In 1821 he returned once more to England, where he remained until 1827, when he was appointed governor of Bombay. His influence in this office was directed to the promotion of various economical reforms and useful administrative measures. Leaving India for the last time in 1830, he shortly after his arrival in England entered parliament as member for Launceston, and was an active opponent of the Reform Bill. He died of paralysis on the 30th of May 1833.

Besides the work mentioned above, Sir John Malcolm published Sketch of the Political History of India since . . . 1784 (in 1811 and 1826); Sketch of the Sikhs (1812); Observations on the Disturbances in the Madras Army in 1809 (1812); Persia, a Poem, anonymous (1814); A Memoir of Central India (2 vols., 1823); and Sketches of Persia, anonymous (1827). A posthumous work, Life of Robert, Lord Clive, appeared in 1836. See Life and Correspondence of Sir John Malcolm, by J. W. Kaye (2 vols., 1856).

MALDA, a district of British India, in the Rajshahi division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Area, 1899 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 884,030, showing an increase of 8.5% in the decade. The administrative headquarters are at English Bazar (pop. 13,667) near the town of Old Malda. The district is divided into two almost equal parts by the Mahananda river, flowing from north to south. The western tract between the Mahananda and the main stream of the Ganges is an alluvial plain of sandy soil and great fertility. The eastern half is an elevated region broken by the deep valleys of the Tangan and Purnabhaba rivers and their small tributary streams. The soil here is a hard red clay; and the whole is overgrown with thorny tree jungle known as the kātāl. Agricultural prosperity centres on the Mahananda, where mango orchards and high raised plots of mulberry land extend continuously along both banks of the river. The Ganges nowhere intersects the district, but skirts it from its north-western corner to the extreme south. The Mahananda flows in a deep well-defined channel through the centre, and joins the Ganges at the southern corner. Its tributaries are the Kalindri on the right, and the Tangan and Purnabhaba on the left bank. The two principal industries are the production of indigo and silk. The first has declined, and so has the second as far as concerns the weaving of piece goods, but the rearing of silkworms and the export of raw silk and silk thread are carried on upon a large scale. No railway touches the district, but the communications by water are good.

Malda supplied two great capitals to the early Mahommedan kings of Bengal; and the sites of Gaur and Pandua exhibit the most interesting remains to be found in the lower valley of the Ganges. (See Gaur.) The connexion of the East India Company with Malda dates from a very early period. As far back as 1676 there was a factory there. In 1770 English Bazar was fixed upon for a commercial residency, the buildings of which at the present day form both the public offices and private residence of the collector.

MALDEN, a city, including several villages, of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the Malden river, about 5 m. N. of Boston. Pop. (1890), 23,031, (1900), 33,664, of whom 9513 were foreign-born, 3673 being English Canadians, 870 English, and 617 Swedes; (1910 census) 44,404. Malden had in 1906 a land area of 4.78 sq. m. It is served by the Boston & Maine railroad, and by inter-urban electric railways. Although it is largely a residential suburb of Boston—its post office is a Boston sub-station—it has important manufacturing industries. The most valuable manufactured product is rubber boots and shoes. The capital invested in manufacturing in 1905 was $5,553,432; and the value of the factory product, $11,235,635, was 70.2% greater than the value of the factory product in 1900. Among Malden’s institutions are the public library (endowed by Elisha S. Converse), the Malden hospital, the Malden day nursery, a Young Men’s Christian Association, and a home for the aged. A fine system of parks is maintained; the best known is possibly Pine Banks. To the north and west is the Middlesex Fells, a state reservation; about 60 acres of this and about 20 acres of the Middlesex Fells Parkway lie within Malden. Malden, when first settled about 1640, was part of Charlestown, and was known for some years as Mystic Side. It was incorporated as a town under the name of “Mauldon” in 1649, and was chartered as a city in 1881. The north part of Malden was set off in 1850 to form Melrose, and the south part