English goods from customs dues for the period of a twelve-month.
It was Oxdenen's lot, like that of many of his countrymen who went to India at this time, to leave his bones in the country. He died on July 14, 1669, at Surat, too early to see the full fruits of his labours, but yet at a sufficiently advanced period to be able to appreciate the momentous character of the change which was coming over the Company's operations. He sleeps with his well-beloved brother -Christopher, who was an official of the Company and died at Surat in 1659, in the graveyard at Surat. Over the remains of the two is a magnificent monument, part of which was provided by George Oxenden on the death of his brother and part by the Company, in gratitude for the latter's services. On the older part of the tomb is the following epitaph penned by George Oxenden, which may surely be ranked amongst the most felicitous of such tributes to the dead:—
"Here is laid Christopher Oxenden, in his life a pattern of fair dealing, in his death a proof of the frailty of life.
He comes and he is gone. Here he ended his ventures and his life.
Days only, not years, could he enter in his accounts; for of a sudden death called him to a reckoning.
Do you ask, my masters, what is your loss and what your gain?
You have lost a servant, we a companion, by his life; but against this he can write 'Death to me is gain.'"
Bombay in its earliest years was happy in the possession of a governor who carried forward the public-spirited traditions of Oxenden and laid broad and deep the foundations of the city. Gerald Aungier, by name, he was a serious minded and practical patriot who brought to his charge those sound personal qualities which never fail to secure the confidence and even regard of Oriental people amongst
