Forbes, James, 1749-1819, James Forbes letter, St. Helena, 1776 February 28, copied between 1794 and 1800
- Call Number:
- Folio A 2023 69
- Holdings:
- [Request]
- Creator:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819
- Title(s):
- James Forbes letter, St. Helena, 1776 February 28
- 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 9, page 185-192
- 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 from St. Helena with a reference to his latest communication: he mentions leaving a letter at the Cape, and suspects that it will arrive in Bombay (Mumbai) far sooner than his current text, which must wait for the annual store-ship to arrive for it to begin its passage to South Asia. Forbes’s voyage to the island was uneventful, he laments that smooth sailing makes for little to report, besides his own enjoyment of the “glorious spectacle of the rising and setting sun.” St. Helena offers a little more of interest. Forbes insists that “altho’ it is little more than a rock emerging from the midst of the vast Atlantic, and but a speck in a map of the terraqueous globe, it well deserves a description.” He begins with the landscape: the coast is composed of almost vertical cliffs, with only one safe anchorage, near which is the only town, a single street, lined with houses built in English style. Forbes comments that “the ladies are all bold riders, and gallop up and down the most fearful precipices.” Inland, however, Forbes finds numerous valleys and rivers: “many a murmuring rill and falling cascade embellish the landscape, and render it completely picturesque.” He embellishes his descriptions of the island’s interior with a quotation from Milton (1608-1674), and compares it to his own experiences of the north of Wales. Fearing his reader misread his enthusiasm for the island, Forbes elaborates: “I cannot agree with some, who extol it as one of the loveliest spots they ever saw; at the same time I think it surprising to behold such picturesque and rural scenes, among a pile of rocks, which from the ocean seem uninhabitable.” Forbes then spends time discussing the inhabitants of the island. His stay, at the house of the lieutenant governor, has been very pleasant, and he notes that, when there is no ship at the island, almost everyone retreats from the town to houses in the country. As he did in India, Forbes judges the appearance of women who live on the island: “The St. Helena ladies have much better complexions than I had imagined in so warm a climate.” In addition to the white inhabitants, there is a population of equal size composed of “slaves and black servants, from Asia and Africa.” Forbes concludes with a brief statement about the weather—the dry seasons are “dreadful”—and his anticipation of a pleasant journey to England. He leaves in the evening. Portions of this text appear in <title>Oriental Memoirs</title>, volume 2, pp. 191-195.
- Physical Description:
- 8 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/3199822
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199822?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1