Forbes, James, 1749–1819, James Forbes letter, Ghereah, 1772 February 5, copied between 1794 and 1800
- Call Number:
- Folio A 2023 69
- Holdings:
- [Request]
- Creator:
- Forbes, James, 1749–1819
- Title(s):
- James Forbes letter, Ghereah, 1772 February 5
- Date:
- copied between 1794 and 1800
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Series:
- Series I: A voyage from England to Bombay with descriptions in Asia, Africa, and South America
- Part of Collection:
- volume 5, page 11-15
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Conditions Governing Access:
- The materials are open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use:
- The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
- Scope and Content:
- Forbes begins his letter with an announcement of his new position at Anjengo (now Anchuthengu), the furthest south of the East India Company’s possessions in India. This is, it seems, not an entirely welcome move—Forbes describes his reluctance to leave Bombay—and yet one that Forbes sees as unavoidable: “I found by experience that Bombay was not the place to accomplish my wishes, at least during my minority in the service; having now resided there near six years without a prospect of laying the smallest foundation for a future fortune.” For Forbes, this search for a fortune is part of a larger quest for independence: he remembers his own departure from England, and from his family, as part of this same urge. He emphasizes one other painful effect of his departure: “you know I had a much stronger attraction; a friend whose absence I cannot so easily reconcile; for ours is not a friendship in the common sense of the word, but raised, I hope, on the noblest basis….” It’s unclear to whom Forbes is referring; his sister had, for portions of his time in India, accompanied him, though it does not seem as though she was with him in Bombay. Another possibility is his colleague John Dalton, whom Forbes’s sister would later marry. Forbes closes this portion of the letter with an excerpt from Edward Young’s (1683-1765) Night-Thoughts, beginning, “Knows’t thou, Lorenzo, what a Friend contains?” Forbes then proceeds to describe the country between Bombay and Anjengo, beginning with the town of Ghereah, “formerly belonging to the famous Angria” and the Maratha Empire, but captured by Robert Clive and Charles Watson. Forbes apologizes for the quality of the image which accompanies the letter, explaining that it was taken at twilight. Forbes closes the letter with a description of the kingdoms that dominate the various regions in which the company has a presence: he lists the “kingdom of Decan,” to the north, the “kingdom of Visiapoor” (see Vijayapur, or the Bijapur Sultanate), and, to the south, “the kingdom of Malabar.” He emphasizes the decline of various cities as they passed from Portuguese to Maratha control, describing the Marathas as “a people fond of plunder, devastation and war, but by no means encouragers of commerce, or the arts of peace.” Portions of this text appear in <title>Oriental Memoirs</title>, volume 1, pp. 293-5.
- Physical Description:
- 5 pages
- Genre:
- Correspondence , Botanical illustrations, Ornithological illustrations, Travel sketches, Maps, Watercolors (paintings), Drawings (visual works), Engravings (prints), and Portraits
- Subject Terms:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819. Descriptive letters and drawingsForbes, James, 1749-1819. Oriental memoirs
- Associated Places:
- EnglandItalyScotlandWales
- Associated People/Groups:
- East India CompanyForbes, James, 1749-1819
- Finding Aid Title:
- James Forbes archive
- Collection PDF:
- https://ead-pdfs.library.yale.edu/11734.pdf
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199552
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199552?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1