]68 JACK'S LETTERS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 



There is a ship sailing for England and I am writing to 

 Brown; 73 I have not yet written to Mr. Colebrooke, 74 as I have 

 nothing to send. This Island yields no mineral but principally 

 granite. 



Lord have mercy upon you in the attempt to decipher this 

 hieroglyphical letter, and thank heaven that there is no time 

 for my doing it myself and so escape the heaviest part of the 

 task. 



Penang March 15th, 1819 



Received May 25th 



per Bengal Merche. 

 My dear Wallich, 



You will ere this have received my last hurried letter and 

 dispatch by the Mercury. With writing to Europe, the bustle of 

 preparation for Sir Stamford's departure, plants coming in, and 

 a variety of trifling interruptions, I had quite enough to do. Now 

 I am quiet and at leisure. Sir Stamford sailed for Acheen on the 

 8th inst. ; he wished to have delayed it till after Lady Raffles' 

 confinement, but under the circumstances of the time, and the 

 open hostility of the Government "who appear resolved to indulge 

 it to the utmost by any means, honorable or dis-honorable, he 

 found it impossible to prolong his stay. On the 12th Lady R. 

 was brought to bed of a son, and is now recovering very fast. I 

 have just found means to send the agreeable intelligence to Sir 

 Stamford, who will I am sure be delighted. Their first child was 

 a daughter, and I know his wish was for a son, so he will be doubly 

 gratified. 



I believe I promised to give you some account of the settle- 

 ment at Singapore, but have not yet had time. I think I informed 

 you of the way in which Sir Stamford got away from this, and 

 the extraordinary conduct of the Government on the occasion. 

 You probably know that ever since the restoration of Java, the 

 Dutch have been endeavouring to extend their influence over the 



73. Robert Brown (1773-1858) ' ' facile botanicorum princeps, Britannia? 

 gloria et ornamentum" in the words of von Humboldt. Jack had made 

 his acquaintance in London at the time when obtaining admittance to the 

 College of Surgeons. 



74. Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1837) was one of the many 

 extremely able civilians in the service of the Honourable East India Com- 

 pany at the commencement of the last century, a Sanskrit scholar, a mathe- 

 matician and a botanist. He was a leader among the men who made the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal, and its President for ten years. He rose to the 

 position of Chief judge, Bengal, and then accepted the acting post of 

 Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, in Roxburgh's absence 

 when Buchanan-Hamilton, who had taken over the duties at first, was 

 leaving India. This he did for the sake of his wife's health, it being 

 thought that a stay outside the capital in the quiet of Shibpur might do 

 her good; but losing her he begged leave to retire and left India in Febru- 

 ary, 1915, taking with him such an active interest in the promotion of 

 Oriental Research as to bring about the foundation in London of the Royal 

 Asiatic Society. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



