'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎92] (111/622)

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HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
Sikh War, which promised to be of a protracted nature, but,
though the application was supported by the Duke of Welling
ton, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Fitzroy Somerset, afterwards
Lord Raglan, the Court refused to comply with the request of
Sir Charles Napier. In 1852, Lieutenant Wood^ sailed for
Australia, whence he returned to England in 1857. In the
following year he proceeded to Kurrachee, as Manager of the
Oriental Inland Steam Navigation Company, which failed,
chiefly because the shareholders were not guided by his councils,
and, in 1861, on the formation of a Commercial Steam Navigation
Flotilla on the Indus, he was appointed, by the Chairman, Mr.
W. P. Andrew, the First Superintendent, and managed the
flotilla with conspicuous success as regards the interests of the
shareholders as well as of the public, until illness, due to fatigue
consequent upon a hurried journey to Simla, undertaken in the
interests of his employers, at the height of the hot season,
necessitated his return to England. Lieutenant Wood never
rallied, and died in London on the 13th of November, 1871,
having survived his two adventurous companions of the Cahul
Mission a period of thirty years. Mr. W. P. Andrew—Chair
man of the Scinde, Punjaub, and Delhi Railway Company, and
also of the Indus Steam Flotilla—writes to us of Lieutenant
Wood's character and career in the following terms:— u John
Wood acted with me for ten years, when in charge of the Indus
Steam Flotilla of the Scinde Railway Company, on terms of
the greatest confidence and affection. No one knew Wood
better than I did, or appreciated his fine qualities more highly.
Distinguished as a traveller and explorer, and especially as the
discoverer of the sources of the Oxus—brave, skilful, and self-
reliant as an officer—yet he was as humble, as he was true to
the Government he served, and the friends who trusted him."
The "Saturday Review," of the 11th of January, 1873,
writing of the labours of this distinguished traveller, says
"Lieutenant, or Captain, Wood, to judge him from his own
writings, appears to have been a man of a straightforward,
honest, and fearless disposition, capable of enduring fatigue
and hunger, and animated generally by that delight in explora
tion and adventure which is characteristic of the members of
the Naval profession. In truth, the officers of that extinct
service, the Indian Navy, were not always appreciated in their
day, and are almost forgotten in our own. By their labours,
pursued under a burning sun, or a fiery blast from the sands
of Arabia, or tropical deluge in the monsoon, have been accu
mulated ample stores of observation on nautical phenomena and
facts; and in the two Burmese Wars as well as in the Indian
Mutiny, they were seen working guns and attacking palisades
in honourable rivalry with officers and sailors of the Royal
Navy. About eleven years ago, in one of those cold fits of