The Society's first meeting of 1786 was held on 19 January. Jones, Hyde, and four others heard a translation of a brief Persian history. Jones seconded the nomination of John Gilchrist, an assistant surgeon who was questioning the East India Company's policy of having its servants gain some command of Persian, the language of the courts and government but not of the people. Stimulating the study of Hindustani, Gilchrist was preparing a dictionary to facilitate communication with Indians. Jones, however, never assisted, loving languages but preferring the classical to the vernacular. Sanskrit so fascinated him that there was little time for Hindi. Had he lent his talents and influence to Gilchrist's mission, conceivably Macaulay's Minute of 1835 might have been forestalled, and perhaps even a decision might have been made to use an Indian language rather than English in Indian schools.

The meeting of 2 February attracted Macpherson, Stables, Chambers, Hyde, and thirty-one others. Because members knew that Jones was devoting his Third Discourse to India, this attendance was the largest during his tenure. According to the schedule in his andrometer, he would not distill all his knowledge into multivolume works until his early fifties. He was still collecting data, directly in the Society and through European exchanges that he was fostering. Jones's system is implicit in his Anniversary Discourses, which show a preliminary integration of Oriental knowledge, although scholars stress the famous philological passage in the Third Discourse.