JACK'S LETTERS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 169 



whole of the Eastern Islands, and by establishing a complete 

 monopoly of their trade, and shutting all the native ports against 

 us, to exclude the British entirely from that commerce. The spirit 

 of hostility in which their designs were carried on, was open and 

 avowed : it is astonishing with what supineness we have looked 

 upon their progress. In Bengal the subject seems scarcely to have 

 attracted attention and indeed how could it in the full ardor of 

 a, grand Pindaree Hunt. This Government 75 made one feeble effort, 

 to get a settlement at the mouth of the Straits, but in their usual 

 spirit of inefficiency and incapability, neglected to support it, and 

 blundered the whole business so abominably, it was worse than 

 doing nothing, for the Dutch finding out our object, came with a 

 force, overturned our treaty and made another in their own favor, 

 excluding us and all foreign nations from the port. This Govern- 

 ment took the affront very quietly, in truth my own opinion is, 

 that they would be well pleased at the complete success of the 

 Dutch schemes, for so perfectly local are their prejudices and so 

 narrow their views, that I believe they fancy the loss of the British 

 influence to the Eastward, would increase the importance of this 

 settlement, and that the loss of the commerce of the Islands, would 

 make the possession of this paltry bit of a place, which has hitherto 

 been maintained as a kind of intermediate station, appear the 

 more valuable. It would make you laugh to hear the way in which 

 the Governor talks of the vast and increasing prosperity of the 

 Presidency, so it is always called. To listen to his account of the 

 extensive cultivation and plantations of spices, nutmegs, cotton, 

 tea, coffee, pepper, &c. &c. one would suppose that he was talking 

 of a place equal to the peninsula of India. He got some time ago 

 a single pod of Pernambuco cotton, TG which was sown, and has 

 multiplied. He was so full of the vast superiority of this cotton, 

 of the great importance of his discovery, and the plantations of 

 it which Avere to drive all other cotton out of the European markets, 

 that I was anxious to see this staple article of the commerce of 

 Penang. It was some time before I could discover it; at last a 

 couple of acres near the jail were pointed out to me, where amid 

 the luxuriance of weeds, I distinguished a few stunted bushes of 

 a Gossypium. This field is now figuring in the dispatches of the 

 Government, and the Honorable Court of directors are, perhaps 

 now calculating the profits of this new created commerce. In 

 anticipation of these exhaustless resources, he is laying new duties 

 upon trade, new taxes upon industry, raising new crops for the 

 service of the Island, and declares he will make the Island pay 

 its own expenses. I beseech you now, do not think that I <am 

 giving you a chapter from the annals of Laputa, it is plain sober 

 fact, and I am now in the place of wonders. 



75. That of Penang. 



76. Pernambuco cotton had been introduced into India in the eigh- 

 teenth century and considerable interest was being taken in it about this 

 time. It has persisted in the damper parts of India, not as a field crop 

 but as a garden plant useful for candle wicks, sacred thread, etc. 



R. A. Soc, No. 73, 1916. 



