Also, a correction of facts (maybe added as a note, it's not a translation error)... the year was 1786, not 1886. But that's just a factual error, not a translation error.
Yes, you're right
"Sir William Jones"
i don't know what I was thinking right then!
As for the tense used in the last phrase it was that I used a past tense for the sentence and I wouldn't love to mix the tenses:
past and present!