JACK'S LETTERS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 171 



an end of the matter. 78 I ought under all circumstances to be 

 indifferent to it, as there was so little chance of my returning to 

 take up the situation, but I know not how it comes, the news has 

 actually annoyed me. I hate to be foiled in anything. I believe 

 I should have cared less had any one else carried it against me, 

 but to John Tytler, to such an Ursa Major, it is a little pro-* 

 voking to yield. I hope you have congratulated Major Hay on 

 his acquisition; he seemed mightily afraid that Botany and duty 

 would not go on well together, as if the important charge of him, 

 his wife, and his Sepoys was enough to employ all the faculties 

 of any single man. But let him and the bear rub on together 

 as they may, be now Sumatra my field, and it shall go hard if it 

 does not produce something. 



I told you in my last, of Sir Stamford's handsome proposal 

 and my acceptance. There is a good beginning; I have much in 

 prospect, which it is too soon yet to enter upon. Perhaps too, we 

 may carry some of our further plans yet into effect. I am anxious 

 to get to Bencoolen, to receive your letters, to be at the capital 

 as it were, to see about me and form my plans, which in this 

 unsettled kind of place I cannot so well do. 



I am preparing a large dispatch which I think will please 

 you. I have been thinking that the most regular and methodical 

 way would be, to send along with the specimens, a list containing 

 such remarks on the plants as may be useful, which will be more 

 convenient to you than having to refer to a desultory letter. It 

 will also be easier for you to return me your remarks in the same 

 manner, either on the same list, or if you prefer keeping it, on 

 another similarly numbered. I would send you the list in dupli- 

 cate to save you trouble, if I had anyone to write for me. I will 

 also for the same reason, send you a list of the principal contents 

 of the former dispatches, that we may go on regularly. I find 

 I have several times numbered the same plant twice, when I did 

 not happen to recollect whether I had before sent specimens. This 

 is a mistake which can be easily rectified, and which you will 

 readily excuse. I send many also without numbering, which I 

 have not had time to examine particularly, but which are not the 

 less worthy of being examined. For instance, there are a great 

 number of Ixorw here, which I have not attempted to ascertain, 

 as I have not Roxburgh's descriptions. Have you got yet into 

 Tetrandria in his printed Flora? 70 What are the " Contributions " 

 doing? I shall ere long have plenty to contribute. 



78. His hopes of the post; see note No. 69.. 



79. Carey and Wallich were engaged in an attempt to publish Rox- 

 burgh's Flora India; and Wallich contrived to publish " Descriptions of 

 some rare Indian plants" Calcutta 1818. The first volume of the Flora 

 containing the Tetrandia came out in 1820 and was not much altered from 

 the original manuscript: but into the second volume which appeared in 

 1822 so much revision was put by Wallich that the two authors never got 

 beyond it, or say one third of the whole. 



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



