INTEODUOTION. 



1. The Two Sets of Letters of the Eev. H. Martyn of Truro, 

 which are now pubKshed by the favour of the Council of the 

 Eoyal Institution of Cornwall, were copied by myself or by my 

 order from the original documents, lent by my relatives.* The 

 larger and more important series was held by Mr. H. M. 

 Hitchins, or his sister Miss E. Hitchins, to whose father and 

 motherf most of the letters had been addressed in the years 1805-9 ; 

 for the three short semi-pastoral letters, which bear the date 

 of 1808, I am indebted to my cousin, Mrs. Slater of Blackheath, 

 to whom they had been presented by a relative of Mrs. Dare. 



The letters in the first set were directed to the Eev. Malachy 

 Hitchins, M.A., vicar of St. Hilary and Q-winear, Cornwall, to 

 his son, Eev. Thomas Martyn Hitchins, incumbent of Stoke, 

 Plymouth Dock, and the wife of the last-named, Mrs. Emma 

 Hitchins. 



The second set of letters was addressed to Mrs. Dare, the 

 wife of an Indian military officer. 



Some of the correspondence with the Hitchins' family had 

 been examined and partly published by Bishop Wilberforce, but 

 only one letter in its entirety ; however, the whole (except the 

 last) are being printed, as they came into my hands, some of 

 them reduced to fragments, possibly from the incidents of publica- 

 tion and circulation. 



A later letter dated from Shiraz, October 21st, 1811, has been 

 already printed verbatim in Martyn' s Journals and Letters, and 

 therefore is not here reproduced. 



All these letters are written with correctness and unstudied 

 ease in familiar correspondence with relatives, and dwell on the 

 same themes as their author's previously j)iiblished writings, 

 viz : — his pastoral ministrations and missionary efforts, his bitter 

 seK-searchings and passionate sorrows, and his incessant toil as 

 an orientalist. 



* Two of the original letters, which I was allowed by my relative, Mr. H." 

 M. Hitchins to retain, -will be presented to the Royal Institution of Cornwall. 

 t See their Pedigi-ee at page 12. 



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