know is that he quarrelled with his father and went to
Calcutta, where he taught Arabic to some British officers and gained a
knowledge of English. We next hear of him in England, when in May 1810 he
was appointed assistant to the well-known oriental scholar, John
Shakespear, professor of Hindustani at the Military College, Addiscombe,
from 1807 to 1830, author of a dictionary of Hindustani and other
educational works. Mention is made of two cadets boarding with Mir
Hasan 'Ali, but it does not appear from the records where he lived.
After remaining at the College for six years he resigned his appointment
on the ground of ill-health, with the intention of returning to India. He
must have been an efficient teacher, because, on his resignation, the East
India Company treated him with liberality. He received a gift of L50 as a
reward for his translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and from the
Court minutes it appears that on December 17, 1816, it was resolved to
grant him 100 guineas to provide his passage and L100 for equipment.
Further, the Bengal Government was instructed to furnish him on his
arrival with means to reach his native place, and to pay him a pension of
Rs. 100 _per mensem_ for the rest of his life.[1]

A tradition from Lucknow states that he was sent to England on a secret
mission, 'to ask the Home authorities to accept a contract of Oudh direct
from Nasir-ud-din Haidar, who was quite willing to remit the money
of contract direct to England instead of settling the matter with the
British Resident at Lucknow'. It is not clear what this exactly means. It
may be that the King of Oudh, thinking that annexation was inevitable, may
have been inclined to attempt to secure some private arrangement with the
East India Company, under which he would remain titular sovereign, paying
a tribute direct to the authorities in England, and that he wished to
conduct these negotiations without the knowledge of the Resident at
Lucknow. There does not seem to be independent evidence of this mission of
Mir Hasan 'Ali, and we are told that it was, as might have been
expected, unsuccessful.

No mention is made of his wife in the official records, and I have been
unable to trace her family name or the date and place of her marriage.
Mir Hasan 'Ali and his wife sailed for Calcutta, and travelled to
Lucknow via Patna. She tells little of her career in India, save that she
lived there for twelve years, presumably from 1816 to 1828,