76 JACK'S LETTERS TO WALLICfl, 1819-1821. 



which we very well know/ 00 giving a most unfair view of the 

 business, and throwing out some shameful insinuations. A wish 

 was expressed that it should be met and answered, and I have 

 undertaken it. I believe that Buckingham will have no objection 

 to inserting a reply, and I shall be greatly obliged if you will 

 undertake the task of getting him to do it. You may with per- 

 fect confidence assure him that every word in it may be depended 

 on. Of course I do not wish to be known as the writer of it. but 

 above all it must never be suspected that Sir 8. had any knowledge 

 of it. If Buckingham does not like, any of his rivals will be glad 

 of it. Read it and let me know whether you think it intelligible. 

 I do not think it possible that they can answer it. The writer 

 of the letter is to a certainty ('apt. Coombs, a man of whom I 

 believe there is but one opinion, and that is such as need not be 

 put on paper. You may easily believe that what 1 now send you 

 is a job I would never readily undertake, but I believe you parti- 

 cipate in the sentiment that has induced me on this occasion to 

 travel so far out of my usual track. In fact, it is not possible 

 to be an indifferent spectator of what is here passing, to refrain 

 from admiration of the one, or for honest indignation at the others. 

 It has hardly been possible for me to convey to you an idea of the 

 contrast, the one is too disagreeable a subject to be dwelt on, and 

 the other it is not easy to express without seeming partial. I 

 know however what your own early impressions were on this sub- 

 ject, and need only say that every day's experience would have 

 strengthened them. 



I have very little time for writing at present, so you will 

 excuse a short letter. I expect to leave this in a few days more, 

 which I shall do with less regret than any place I have ever 

 been in. 



If an answer to mine should ever appear, approve me. 



I dispatched to you a box of growing plants some time ago, 

 by the Boyne, which I hope will have arrived in good condition. 

 I have little to add at present on our own subject. I have how- 

 ever made a discovery of some importance, that what I sent you 

 as a Pinus, is not a Pinus. I had long sought in vain for the 

 cones, and at length procured some with a small berry, which 

 proves it to be either a Taxus or Juniperus, I have not determined 



100. Anderson in his book on "Acheen" already quoted, p. 134, says 

 ' ' The papers in Calcutta now began to take up the subject of Acheen 

 affairs very warmly, and the friends and supporters of both parties had 

 an opportunity of conveying their opinions in the shape of extracts of 

 private letters from Penang. Some of the letters addressed to the Calcutta 

 Journal bear the stamp of having been written by the different organs of 

 each party, if not by the Commissioners themselves. The style of the first 

 so much resembles that of the paper of October, 1817, and the reports of 

 the envoy, that if he did not write it himself, he must have entrusted it to 

 a head and hand fully capable of catching at his precise ideas. ' ' Jack 

 here says that Captain Coombs, i.e. the Envoy, "certainly" wrote it: and 

 he reveals the fact that he wrote a reply. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



