injunctions of parliament and the East India Company, and pursued a thoroughly unambitious and equitable policy. Being more anxious to extend the trade than the territories of the company, his policy was attacked by the jingoes of that period as temporising and timid. That there was some truth in this cannot be denied. He acquiesced in the successful invasion by the Mahrattas of the dominions of the nizam; he permitted the growth of a French subsidiary force in the service of more than one native power; he thwarted Lord Hobart's efforts for extending the sphere of British influence; he allowed the growth and aggressions of the Sikh states in northern India; and he looked on passively while Tippoo was preparing for war. The only answer to these charges is that Shore faithfully obeyed his instructions, and nothing more could be expected of him. Though he showed great weakness in dealing with the mutiny of the officers of the Bengal army, he displayed courage of a very high order in settling the question of the Oude succession. His substitution of Saadut Ali for Vizier Ali met with universal approval in India, and the court of directors recorded that ‘in circumstances of great delicacy and embarrassment Sir John Shore had conducted himself with great temper, ability, and firmness.’ As a reward for his services Shore was created Baron Teignmouth in the peerage of Ireland by letters patent executed at Dublin on 3 March 1798. Resigning the government into the hands of Sir Alured Clarke [q. v.], he left India in March 1798, and on his return to England received the thanks of the court of directors ‘for his distinguished merit and attention in the administration of every branch of the company's service during the period in which he held the office of governor-general.’ On 4 April 1807 he was appointed a member of the board of control, an office to which no salary was attached, and four days afterwards was sworn a member of the privy council (London Gazette, 1807, pp. 422, 449). He occasionally transacted business at the board of control, or at the Cockpit, where as a privy councillor he sometimes decided Indian appeals with Sir William Grant and Sir John Nicholl. But he soon lost all interest in Indian affairs, and occupied the greater part of his time in religious and philanthropic matters, though he nominally remained a member of the board until February 1828.
He never took his seat in the Irish House of Lords, nor was he elected a representative peer after the union. He was twice examined before the House of Commons on Indian affairs, on 18 June 1806 (Parl. Papers, 1806–7, No. 240–41), and on 30 March 1813 (ib. 1812–13, vii. 9–20). In consequence of the order of the House of Commons for Teignmouth's attendance on the first occasion, the House of Lords on 19 July 1806 passed a resolution maintaining the privilege of peerage as apart from the privilege of parliament (Journals of the House of Lords, xlv. 812). This resolution, however, was not communicated to the commons, and on the second occasion the order of the commons for Teignmouth's attendance was not questioned by the lords (Diary and Corr. of Lord Colchester, 1861, ii. 69, 442; May, Parl. Practice, 1893, pp. 403–4).
Shore became a prominent member of the evangelical party known as the Clapham sect, which included the Thorntons, Charles Grant, John Venn, Zachary Macaulay, and William Wilberforce. From 1802 to 1808 he lived at Clapham. In the latter year he removed to London, where he passed the remainder of his days. Shore was elected the first president of the British and Foreign Bible Society on 14 May 1804, and held that office until the end of his life. He took an active part in the various controversies to which that institution gave rise, and gave his decision in favour of the exclusion of the apocryphal books from all editions of the Bible issued by the society. He died at his house in Portman Square on 14 Feb. 1834, aged 82, and was buried in Marylebone parish church, where a monument was erected to his memory.
Teignmouth had three sons and six daughters by his wife, who died on 13 July 1834. He was succeeded in the title by his eldest son, Charles John Shore, who represented Marylebone in the House of Commons from March 1838 to June 1841, and died on 18 Sept. 1885.
Teignmouth was a hard-working and useful administrator. His talents were moderate, and his religious views were strong; but of his ‘integrity, humanity, and honour it is impossible to speak too highly’ (Lord Macaulay, Edinb. Rev. lxxx. 227).
Teignmouth was elected president of the Royal Society of Literature, but declined the office in favour of Bishop Burgess. He was the intimate friend of Sir William Jones (1746–1794) [q. v.], whom he succeeded as president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal on 22 May 1794, when he delivered an address on the ‘Literary History’ of his predecessor (London, 1795, 8vo), which has been frequently reprinted, and has been translated into Italian. Three of his contributions to the society are printed in ‘Asiatick Researches’ (ii. 307–22, 383–7, iv. 331–
