Chapter LXIX: Letter LXVIII: To Mr. J---- W

1778.

YOUR good father insists on my scribbling a sheet of absurdities, and gives a notable reason for it--that is, ‘Jack will be pleased with it.’--Now be it known to you--I have a respect both for father and son--yea, for the whole family, who are every soul (that I have the honour or pleasure to know any thing of) tinctured and leavened with all the obsolete goodness of old times--so that a man runs some hazard, in being seen in the W----e’s society, of being biassed to Christianity.--I never see your poor father--but his eyes betray his feelings--for the hopeful youth in India--a tear of joy dancing upon the lids--is a plaudit not to be equalled this side death!--See the effects of right-doing, my worthy friend; continue in the tract of rectitude--and despise poor paltry Europeans--titled Nabobs.--Read your Bible--as day follows night, God’s blessing follows virtue;--honour and riches bring up the rear--and the end is peace.--Courage, my boy--I have done preaching.--Old folks love to seem wise--and if you are silly enough to correspond with grey hairs--take the consequence.--I have had the pleasure of reading most of your letters, through the kindness of your father.--Youth is naturally prone to vanity: such is the weakness of human nature, that pride has a fortress in the best of hearts.--I know no person that possesses a better than Johnny W----;--but although flattery is poison to youth, yet truth obliges me to confess that your correspondence betrays no symptom of vanity--but teems with truths of an honest affection--which merits praise--and commands esteem.

In some of your letters which I do not recollect, you speak (with honest indignation) of the treachery and chicanery of the natives[7].--My good friend, you should remember from whom they learnt those vices:--the first Christian visitors found them a simple, harmless people--but the cursed avidity for wealth urged these first visitors (and all the succeeding ones) to such acts of deception--and even wanton cruelty--that the poor ignorant natives soon learnt to turn the knavish and diabolical arts which they soon imbibed--upon their teachers.

I am sorry to observe that the practice of your country (which as a resident I love--and for its freedom, and for the many blessings I enjoy in it, shall ever have my warmest wishes--prayers--and blessings;) I say, it is with reluctance that I must observe your country’s conduct has been uniformly wicked in the East--West Indies--and even on the coast of Guinea.--The grand object of English navigators--indeed of all Christian navigators--is money--money--money--for which I do not pretend to blame them.--Commerce was meant, by the goodness of the Deity, to diffuse the various goods of the earth into every part--to unite mankind in the blessed chains of brotherly love--society--and mutual dependence:--the enlightened Christian should diffuse the riches of the Gospel of peace--with the commodities of his respective land.--Commerce, attended with strict honesty--and with Religion for its companion--would be a blessing to every shore it touched at.--In Africa, the poor wretched natives--blessed with the most fertile and luxuriant soil--are rendered so much the more miserable for what Providence meant as a blessing:--the Christians’ abominable traffic for slaves--and the horrid cruelty and treachery of the petty Kings--encouraged by their Christian customers--who carry them strong liquors, to enflame their national madness--and powder and bad fire arms, to furnish them with the hellish means of killing and kidnapping.--But enough--it is a subject that sours my blood--and I am sure will not please the friendly bent of your social affections.--I mention these, only to guard my friend against being too hasty in condemning the knavery of a people, who, bad as they may be--possibly were made worse by their Christian visitors.--Make human nature thy study wherever thou residest--whatever the religion or the complexion, study their hearts.--Simplicity, kindness, and charity, be thy guide;--with these, even Savages will respect you--and God will bless you!

Your father--who sees every improvement of his boy with delight--observes that your hand-writing is much for the better;--in truth, I think it as well as any modest man can wish:--if my long epistles do not frighten you--and I live till the return of next spring--perhaps I shall be enabled to judge how much you are improved since your last favour.--Write me a deal about the natives--the soil and produce--the domestic and interior manners of the people--customs--prejudices--fashions--and follies.--Alas! we have plenty of the two last here--and what is worse, we have politics--and a detestable Brothers war--where the right hand is hacking and hewing the left--whilst Angels weep at our madness--and Devils rejoice at the ruinous prospect.

Mr. R---- and the ladies are well.--Johnny R---- has favourd me with a long letter; he is now grown familiar with danger--and can bear the whistling of bullets--the cries and groans of the human species--the roll of drums--clangor of trumpets--shouts of combatants--and thunder of cannon--all these he can bear with soldier-like fortitude--with now and then a secret wish for the society of his London friends--in the sweet blessed security of peace and friendship.

This, young man, is my second letter;--I have wrote till I am stupid, I perceive--I ought to have found it out two pages back.--Mrs. Sancho joins me in good wishes--I join her in the same;--in which double sense believe me,

Yours, &c. &c.

I. SANCHO.

Postscript. (Very short.)

It is with sincere pleasure I hear you have a lucrative establishment--which will enable you to appear and act with decency;--your good sense will naturally lead you to proper œconomy--as distant from frigid parsimony, as from a heedless extravagancy;--but as you may possibly have some time to spare upon your hands for necessary recreation--give me leave to obtrude my poor advice.--I have heard it more than once observed of fortunate adventurers--they have come home enriched in purse--but wretchedly barren in intellects:--the mind, my dear Jack, wants food--as well as the stomach;--why then should not one wish to increase in knowledge as well as money?--Young says--“Books are fair Virtue’s advocates and friends:”--now my advice is--to preserve about 20_l._ a year for two or three seasons--by which means you may gradually form a useful, elegant, little library.--Suppose now the first year you send the order and the money to your father--for the following books--which I recommend from my own superficial knowledge as useful.--A man should know a little of Geography--History, nothing more useful, or pleasant.

Robertson’s Charles the Fifth, 4 vols.
Goldsmith’s History of Greece, 2 vols.
Ditto, of Rome, 2 vols.
Ditto, of England, 4 vols.

Two small volumes of Sermons--useful--and very sensible--by one Mr. Williams, a dissenting minister--which are as well as fifty--for I love not a multiplicity of doctrines--a few plain tenets--easy--simple and directed to the heart--are better than volumes of controversial nonsense.--Spectators--Guardians--and Tatlers--you have of course.--Young’s Night-Thoughts--Milton--and Thomson’s Seasons were my summer companions for near twenty years--they mended my heart--they improved my veneration to the Deity--and increased my love to my neighbours.

You have to thank God for strong natural parts--a feeling humane heart;--you write with sense and judicious discernment. Improve yourself, my dear Jack, that if it should please God to return you to your friends with the fortune of a man in upper rank, the embellishments of your mind may be ever considered as greatly superior to your riches--and only inferior to the goodness of your heart. I give you the above as a sketch--your father and other of your friends will improve upon it in the course of time--I do indeed judge that the above is enough at first--in conformity with the old adage----“A few Books and a few Friends, and those well chosen.” Adieu. Yours,

I. SANCHO.

[7] Extracts of two letters from Mr. W----e to his Father, dated
Bombay, 1776 and 1777.

“1776. I have introduced myself to Mr. G----, who behaved very
friendly in giving me some advice, which was very necessary, as the
inhabitants, who are chiefly Blacks, are a set of canting,
deceitful people, and of whom one must have great caution.”

“1777. I am now thoroughly convinced, that the account which Mr.
G---- gave me of the natives of this country is just and true; that
they are a set of deceitful people, and have not such a word as
Gratitude in their language, neither do they know what it is;--and
as to their dealings in trade, they are like unto Jews.”