ABSTRACT
Of the five sons of Henry Abbott, himself once a Calcutta merchant, three served in India as army officers. James Madden was the youngest of these. He arrived in India as a second lieutenant in the Bengal Artillery in 1823, took part in the siege of the fortress of Bharatpur in 1825–1826, and was thereafter assigned to work on the revenue survey. Abbott was part of the army from British India that invaded Afghanistan in 1839, and took part the same year in Major Elliott D’Arcy Todd’s diplomatic mission to Herat. He was then sent by Todd on a mission of his own to the Khan of Khiva, in an attempt to stave off Russian intervention in the state. On his return to India in 1841, Abbott held successive political appointments, first as assistant to the resident at Indore; then as commissioner of Hazara district, in the Punjab, when Sikh territories were brought under British control in 1848.
