"JOHN" ROXBUfiGH 29 



Dr. William Roxburgh by the Rev. A. John, then at the head of 

 the Tranquebar Mission. This letter says : — 



" Your Jack you shall never get till I have made him fit for your 

 Assistance and be sure that I am so much your friend that no Body 

 in Indostan will endeavour so much for his best than I. Though his 

 genius is but of the middle sort I hope to make him a useful member 

 of Societ}^ and suitable for your purposes if you only leave me Time. 

 " Our ships with botanic Books are not yet arrived. Depend on 

 my Readiness. You may easily be with the Moravians, who are 

 mostly Shoe- Escritoir- and Watch-makers but no Planters. 



'* Now I wont tire you any more and am with Compliments from 

 all, who esteem you and your good Lady. My most valuable friend, 

 Yours intirely, A. Johx." 



This letter, then, tells us that John Roxburgh did exist. It does 

 not tell us where John was born or who his mother was. The 

 circumstance that the up-bringing of the lad had been entrusted to 

 the Danish Mission at Tranquebar, instead of being arranged for in 

 his father's house, suggests that he was not the son of the "good 

 Lady " to whom the letter transmits the compliments of the Moravian 

 brethren. Whether this " good Lady " were the first or the second 

 of the wives of Dr. Roxburgh, whose names are given in the " family 

 table" so courteously supplied by Mr. N. Bonham-Carter for incor- 

 pomtion in Sir G-eorge King's " Memoir of William Roxburgh " 

 (Ann. Calc. Bot. Gard. v.), can only be settled by those who have 

 access to the dates of Dr. Roxburgh's various marriages. 



If the letter be equally silent as to when John Roxburgh was 

 born, it nevertheless shows that by May 1793 the lad was of such an 

 age as to induce his father to consider the time had come when he 

 might reasonably hope to take advantage of his son's "Assistance." 

 That the " purposes " Roxburgh had in view included the employ- 

 ment of the lad as a gardener may be surmised from the Rev. John's 

 half -apologetic, half-playful reminder that " planting " was not 

 one of the accomplishments to which the Moravian brethren laid 

 claim. 



The date of Mr. John's letter shows us that Roxburgh's anxiety 

 to receive his son John from the Mission had nothing to do with his own 

 transfei- from Samalcotta in Madras to the Botanic Garden, Calcutta, 

 which took place in 1793. The letter was written on 15 May; 

 Colonel Robert Kyd, Superintendent of the Calcutta Garden, did 

 not die until 26 May ; it was not till 29 November, 1793, that 

 Dr. William Roxburgh entered on his duties at Calcutta as 

 Col. Kyd's successor. It seems probable, however, from this letter, 

 that John Roxburgh did not accompany his father to Calcutta in 

 1793, and the writer has met with no document suggesting that 

 father and son met during the next five years. In fact, we hear no 

 more of John Roxburgh until the period of four or five years during 

 which, according to Mr. D. Don, he lived at the Cape. The Editor 

 of this Journal has pointed out that a Banksian sheet at the British 

 Museum fixes the date of Dr. William Roxburgh's own residence for 

 a twelvemonth at the Cape as 1799 and that an entry in the Hortus 

 Bengahnsis (p. 54), written by Roxburgh himself, shows that his 



