Forbes, James, 1749–1819, James Forbes letter, London, 1776 November 15, copied between 1794 and 1800
- Call Number:
- Folio A 2023 69
- Holdings:
- [Request]
- Creator:
- Forbes, James, 1749–1819
- Title(s):
- James Forbes letter, London, 1776 November 15
- 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 213-227
- 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’s sixty-third letter recounts the final stages of his journey back to England from India. He writes from London, to a contact in India, and opens his letter with an apology for not writing sooner. He mentions the replacement of one colonial official by another as his occasion for writing; it is unclear whether this has some particular bearing on his ability to write, or simply indicates another ship leaving for South Asia. He references another enclosed letter for “domestic and political information.” Forbes then begins the details of his ongoing journey. After leaving St. Helena, the voyage proves difficult. Thinking themselves far out at sea, the crew panics when they find the ship nearly aground on the Gold Coast. They have significant difficulty piloting the ship back out to sea, though an encounter with a French vessel from Mauritius—whose crew they dine with for some time—provides some distraction. Forbes breaks the remainder of his letter into sections, each detailing a specific portion of the trip. He first offers a series of observations on “Fish on the Coast of Guinea,” in which he marvels at the man o’ war and the fish that follow close behind it. He notes the different types of flying fish, and describes sharks of tremendous size, who “often follow the slaving-vessels from Guinea to America and the West India islands; to eat the bodies of the poor Negroes who are so fortunate as to die on the voyage, and escape from Christian bondage.” He adds to his description with a passage from his “favorite bard,” James Thomson’s (1700-1748) “The Seasons.” Forbes next describes his passage by the “Cape-de-Verd Islands,” including a short stay on the island of Fogo. He describes the “liquid Lava, hot stones, ashes, and flames” of the volcano there, but notes that it was quiet during his stay. He also describes how St. Jago (Santiago), though flourishing when he first visited, “from a want of rain for some years, it is now almost desolate.” From Cape Verde Forbes continues to the Azores, islands Forbes describes as quite pleasing, though so prone to earthquakes “and all their horrid devastations, that a milder sway than Portugal excersizes over her colonies, would never tempt me to settle there.” Running low on supplies, the ship then diverts to Ireland, where it is met by a wide array of people, all hoping to buy goods from India. At Cork, Forbes describes an atmosphere “like a fair” with “fine blooming girls…constantly arriving, and their beauty appeared quite dazzling, after so long an absence from European complexions.” Forbes regrets his inability to make any journeys into the country, and, learning that his ship will probably stay for a longer period of time, leaves for England on a different boat. At last, Forbes arrives in England. He disembarks in Hastings, and writes, “I cannot express my feelings when I first set my foot on the English shore, after an absence of eleven years; the thrillings of joy were too great, and for a time produced a sensation like a sickness at the heart.” He includes a quotation from Fanny Greville’s “Prayer for Indifference,” before describing his journey to London and his final arrival at his father’s house. He concludes his letter with an extended quotation from Joseph Addison’s (1672-1719) “How Are thy Servants Blest, O Lord!” Portions of this text appear in <title>Oriental Memoirs</title>, volume 2, pp. 200-206.
- Physical Description:
- 15 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/3199827
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199827?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1