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causes have no effect upon the European constitution in India; I 

 know from long experience they are often very powerful; and 

 it must be admitted, that, notwithstanding the utmost care and cir- 

 cumspection, they frequently produce a gradual and melancholy 

 effect, especially on delicate females, who uniformly lead a life 

 of temperance, tranquillity, and virtue. But in that class of Asiatic 

 society which I allude to, I am persuaded that moral evil produces 

 far more fatal consequences than any physical cause whatso- 

 ever. 



I can illustrate my position by two anecdotes, trifling perhaps 

 in themselves,- but not totally irrelevant to the purpose. The in- 

 troduction of such circumstances sometimes throws more lisht 

 upon a subject than learned and laborious discussion. 



I was one day in company at Bombay, with twelve other gen- 

 tlemen, in the civil service, most of them considerably under 

 thirty years of age, when the conversation turning upon the mor- 

 tality of Europeans in India, one of the company made use of the 

 old remark, that there was something ominous in the number thir- 

 teen at a convivial meeting, and that certainly one of us would 

 die before the anniversary of that day in the following year; the 

 probability of which was certainly much in his favour in a climate 

 deemed so inimical to European constitutions. I was, at the 

 moment, cutting open the leaves of a book with an ivory paper- 

 cutter; and merely to keep in mind the predicted death of one of 

 the company within twelve months from the assertion, I wrote 

 down on the ivory the name of each individual comprised in the 

 fatal number: this was in the year 1770. The ensuing year passed 

 over without the completion of the prophesy; not one of the com- 



