10 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 8. 
accessible in all seasons, as is possessed by no other 
nation on the world’s surface. It would be, says Sir 
Joseph Paxton, “ a park, decorated with the beauties of 
nature and art, under a sky-roof, having a climate 
warmed and ventilated for the purpose of health alone, 
furnishing, close to their own firesides, a promenade 
unequalled in the world, and, for the six winter months, 
a temperature analogous to that of Southern Italy. 
Beautiful creeping plants might be planted against the 
columns, and trained along the girders, so as to give 
shade in summer, while the effect they would produce 
by festooning in every diversity of form over the build¬ 
ing, would give the whole a most enchanting and 
gorgeous finish.” 
In our last number (page 2) we left Mr. Alexander 
Anderson, in the February of 1778, at Philadelphia, 
serving as a volunteer, but anxious to return to New 
York for his books, papers, and collections. That return 
he effected in the course of the year, for in a letter dated 
March 18th, 1779, he mentions having sent packages of 
plants to Mr. Forsyth from New York, in the December 
of the previous year. His stay at New York, however, 
had not been long, for this letter is written from St. 
Pieres in the island of Martinico, and the cause of his 
being there is told in this paragraph :— 
“I wrote you my determination of sailing to Surinam, 
but on my intended voyage thither was taken by an American 
privateer, and brought into this place about two months 
since, where I now remain a prisoner of war on parole.” 
What object induced Mr. Anderson to endeavour to 
reach Surinam does not appear, nor do we know exactly 
the time or mode of his release from captivity. This, 
however, was not of long duration, for on the 21st of 
March, 1780, he had reached the West Indian island, 
St. Lucia, and wrote thence the following letter:— 
HR. A. ANDERSON TO MR. FORSYTH. 
I received your kind letter, dated the 1st. of September 
(which deserves my warmest gratitude to you), but I have 
been unable, as yet, to comply with the contents of it, owing 
to my bad state of health I have laboured under since the 
beginning of July. I was very bad with an ague, and in¬ 
termitting fever. I had almost lost the sight of my eyes 
with one fit of the ague, but I thank God am at present 
tolerably well. 
The aii’ of this island is mortal to most Europeans, and 
very few constitutions can possibly stand it. 
I have got in no way of business as yet, and I am per¬ 
suaded that I could not bear the confinement of any business 
in this island, and, I believe, hardly in any other part; for 
the researches and contemplations of nature are too attract¬ 
ing for me to be ever able to depress my ideas to any 
lucrative lvay for worldly interest, and I have often found 
that my attention has been drawn too much that way for my 
ease and quiet in a present life. 
Had it not been for my bad state of health, I should have 
been able to have sent you many natural productions by 
tills time, but at present I can only send you some seeds 
that I have by me, as in my present condition I am unable 
to traverse this inhospitable region to search for anything; 
for I believe my late sickness in a great measure arose from 
my exposing myself too much to a scorching sun. The 
heat here is oftentimes almost intolerable, especially in the 
woods, excluded from the circumambient air, and exposed 
to the perpendicular rays of a vertical sun. I hope in the 
course of a few weeks I shall be able to reassume my former 
exercise, and you may be assured my natural inclination 
will require no injunctions as a spur to my industry in col¬ 
lecting all natural productions (which I think worthy obser¬ 
vation), whether vegetable, animal, or mineral. 
This is, I think, no favourable season for sending plants 
in a state of vegetation from the torrid zone to Britain. I 
think the beginning of May soon enough for them to arrive 
in England. Write to me if you think you could preserve 
the Epidendrimu (or any other parasitical plants) in your 
hothouses, as there is a great variety of them in this island, 
and many of them beautiful plants, worthy the attention of 
the curious. I think, to cut off part of the plant, they grow 
upon would be the most eligible method of transporting 
them to you in a vegetating state. 
Next opportunity I shall send some of the best kinds of 
Pine-apples to Anthony Chamiers, Esq., that I can procure ; 
at present you must excuse me, on account of my indis¬ 
position. 
I very much desire to return to North America, if it would 
please God that matters might be accommodated 'twixt it 
and Britain. It is there! where an unbounded field is open 
for the inspection of the curious; it is there! the beauties of 
nature may be contemplated with pleasure; it is there ! 
nature amply pays the researchers of her repositories, with¬ 
out the fatigues and dangers one must undergo in such a 
climate as this. Indeed, nothing but a kind of enthusiasm 
could carry a man through the difficulties he must encounter 
in this part of the globe in search of natural productions; 
but, indeed, the tropics seem to be unfavourable to the 
advancement of science, or contemplation of any kind. 
You are so good as to desire to know how I subsist, not 
being in business, or any ivay to acquire anything. I con¬ 
fess, if some gentlemen had not taken particular notice of 
me when I first came to the island, I should have been 
poorly situated, and perhaps gone into some way contrary to 
my inclination; but it pleases God, in all places where I 
have been, some one pays uncommon attention to me, which 
I have happily experienced here. For the collector of his 
Majesty’s customs in this island (William Grant, Esq.) has 
in reality been rather a father to me than a friend. His 
house has been, and still is, my home ; and in my sickness 
he tenderly cared for me, and nursed me with his own 
hands. He is a man of education and sense, and much 
given to natural philosophy. 
Be as kind, in your next letter to me, as to let me know 
if the plants and seeds of the Cinchona ever came to hand 
which I sent about the end of July. There was two boxes 
with seedlings of the Cinchona, and some other plants, and 
also a bundle with seeds. They were directed to Mr. Aiton. 
One Mr. Stuart, a merchant, had the charge of them; he 
also took with him a quantity of the bark of the Cinchona. 
I ordered him to give some of it to you and Mr. Aiton, to 
get it tried, to know if it had the real virtue of the Peruvian 
bark, which I have reason to think it has (from the trials 
that have been made here of it) ; and I think it is the 
identical species that grows in Peru, that all the difference 
arises from wrong drawings, and descriptions acquired of 
! the Peruvian. If it should have the same quality, it will be 
j a valuable acquisition to the British nation. Be that as it 
will, I think it is worthy the trial. 
On my first finding it, I brought specimens of the fructi¬ 
fication, and some of the bark, to Dr. Young of St. Vincent’s, 
who was at that time at the general hospital here. He told 
me he thought it equally efficacious to the Peruvian bark, if 
not superior to it. Said gentleman seemed very anxious 
about it, and as I took him to the place, and shelved him 
the trees I first discovered of it, he gathered a quantity of 
the hark, which he carefully dried. 
It is something strange, that the idea of searching for 
this plant struck me at my first coming on the island. Had 
I not seen it with the capsule in perfection, I should hardly 
have detected it from the other parts of fructification, as 
described by Linmeus in his Genera Plantarum (I fiud his 
description of many of the West Indian plants very absurd). 
When I brought specimens of it to Dr. Young, he shewed 
me a drawing, which he said was of the Peruvian (that he 
got from Mr. Aiton), but it was not similar to this, and 
Dr. Young himself hesitated with me -whether it was a 
species of it or not, until he saw a drawing of another 
species in Jacquin’s History of West Indian Plants. 
I found it, at first, only growing in one place, although 
