hopes, would the exult at the possibility of his having escaped the iron hand of the imprefs, and make his appearance in disguise; but days and weeks passed away, and William appeared not. At length the following letter, brought, though a mournful comfort, a relief to her anxious suspence.

MY DEAREST BESS,

Portsmouth, 20th of June.

You know I went on board the Trader, to pilot her down to the May. When I was coming up with Tom Rufsel and Bob Hughs in the boat with me, we were all pressed, and so brought here in the Champion frigate. As I seed I could not get off, so I bethought myself that it was for the best to enter; but they are talking of there being no war; so hopes we will soon be paid off again. In the mean time, I am in good health, and would be in good spirits, if it were not for thinking of you my dear. my dear you will write to me, to the care of captain Gun, ` of the Thunder frigate, with which I am entered; and you will do it soon, lest, we should be gone from here, So remain my dear yours until death.

WILLIAM SMITH.

So

Betsy then began to be resigned to her fate, and was daily in hopes of the imprefs ceasing, and the sailors being discharged. Thus passed six months, at the end of which he was delivered of a fine male child. Soon af- `ter her recovery, the heard the agreeable news of the preparations for war being at an end; and received a letter from Willam that he was paid off at Portsmouth, and had taken his passage in a fhip round to the Thames, from whence he was to come down to Leith in one of the London traders. Betsy was now quite overjoyed; her good spirits made her take still greater delight in caref sing her little infant, in whose face the already percei red its father's likeness; and the rejoiced in anticipating

the pleasure of presenting the sweet innocent to him on

his happy return.

She was already become uneasy at his not arriving, or、 her not having again heard from him, when he received the following letter:

DEAR BESS,

Gravesend, 1st of Feb.

When I arrived in the river, and was a going aboard a fhip, to see if so be that I could get a passage to Leith, there was a spar fell off the deck, and struck me on the shoulder, and knocked me down, and the end crushed my right hand on the boat's gunnell. Seeing that it was so that I was too much hurt to go to sea, I came back here and have since been a little feverish. As I cannot write with my hand, this is not wrote by myself. I would not have you be uneasy my dear, because I hopes to be soon well and able to come to you. Till then I am your loving WILLIAM SMITH.

husband

This, again, threw Betsy into sadnefs and distrefs; her anxiety magnified every thing in the letter; fhe imagined. William to be dangerously ill; and, in fhort, immediately formed the design of going to him herself. All her friends could not difsuade her from it; it was in vain for them to point out to her how probable it was that he would be perfectly recovered before she got there; and how unnecessary is was for her to expose herself to the danger and fatigue of such a voyage, at that season. She would not be prevented, nor would the leave her child behind, as she could not be brought to part with it, lest the change of milk fhould hurt it, or it fhould not be taken proper care of in her absence. And as the old man had died, opprefsed with anxiety, some time after his son William had disappeared, fhe had no object at home sufficient to detain her from her husband. She applied to captain Jenkins who agreed to give her a pafsage free in his fhip from VOL. XIV.

K

t

Leith, and the arrived safe at Gravesend, with her little child, where the found her husband almost quite well, and waiting an opportunity of coming to Scotland. It is impofsible to delineate her joy, and his surprise at meeting each other. The satisfaction of so happy a circumstance, after so many hardships, was unequalled, and their mutual love glowed with renovated warmth. To be continued.

NOTICES OF A FAMINE IN INDIA, WITH REMARKS SUGGESTED BY THAT EVENt.

FROM the correspondence of Dr Anderson of Madras, from time to time inserted in the Bee, it appears that one of the great objects of those truly patriotic exertions he has made for the improvement of India, is to guard against those famines which have hitherto been so frequent in populous tropical regions. We who live in a climate that does not admit of such abundant vegetation in favourable seasons, have no idea of the immense difference between the quantity of human food produced there in one season, in proportion to the deficiency of another, and the consequent mischiefs it occasions. But Dr Anderson having lived longer there than most Europeans, has so often had occasion to observe the fatal effects of these vicissitudes, that it has excited in his mind an ardent desire of guarding against the effects of it in future, by the wise and salutary measures he has recommended. That our readers may form some judgement of the effects of this miserable scourge of mankind, I here subjoin an extract of a letter, of date the 5th of October 1792, describing the misery experienced by the inhabitants of a considerable part of India at present, which I received from a correspondent on the spot, by the Ganges. Since the commencement of this work, I have scarcely received

-á dispatch from India in which something of the same sort has not been detailed.

66

un

I do not recollect whether I mentioned before, that a most dreadful famine has raged for many months in our northern circars, from the failure of the usual falls of rain. For these nine or ten months past, the misery has been dreadful; the country in many places quite depopulated. Houses have been broken open where the whole family have been found dead in other places, nineteen families out of twenty have been destroyed; and throughout these extensive circars, at the most moderate calculation, I derstand more than one half have perished. An unfortunate dread of famine in Bengal, has caused the desolation to be so widely extended, and the supplies that have been sent have arrived so lately, that little good can yet be done; and the high price that imported grain always bears, does not allow the lower classes of inhabitants in a country, where much silver does not circulate among them, ever to benefit much by it; the little money they could have had, must have been expended long ago, and it has been impossible to earn any thing for many months, from the great debility that a scanty, poor, and frequently unwholesome food has produced among the few remaining; yet I do not learn that any pecuniary aid has been afforded at present, to preserve even them; although it must be every where allowed, that no misfortune or lofs can happen to any country equal to the lofs of inhabitants. Such is the unfortunate situation of most Eastern countries, where no provision is made against a failure of rain, and where the inhabitants are satisfied with a daily subsistence."

To guard against the frequency of disasters of this sort, Dr. Anderson has proposed to introduce the culture of silk, and cochineal, and indigo, into these regions; thus to furnish employment to the people, and to give them the means of purchasing rice from other countries, when an

March 13. accidental scarcity in one province, fhall happen to prevail; and along with that, he is now anxiously employed in recommending extensive plantations of the bread fruit. trees, which may yield an abundant resource in those seasons when the crop of rice fails. The nopal plants, too, by affording a nourishing vegetable food, may contribute much, he thinks, in promoting this desirable end: but before his beneficent views can be fully effected, other measures must co-operate, which it is to be feared the state of India at present, scarcely admits of being vigorously adopted.

It is a prodigious misfortune to the people in India, that the religious tenets of many of their sects circumscribe the kinds of food they are permitted to eat within such narrow bounds. Not only are they debarred from tasting of animal food, but even many kinds of vegetable substances are held to be impure. Hence it happens, that the bulk of the people are reduced to live almost entirely upon rice. Now, as rice cannot be reared to a full crop, unless where the plants grow among water, for the greatest part of the time they are in the ground, it follows that when the rains are not so abundant as to supply the quantity of water necefsary for that purpose, they have no crop of it; and on these occasions they have scarce any thing else, to which they can have re

course.

What adds to this misfortune, is, that on these occasions also, the only other substitute for rice the poor people have it in their power to adopt, must be also proportionally diminished in quantity; vix the root of the nymphea aquatica, or water lily, which in rainy seasons. affords them a plentiful food at a plentiful food at a small expence. This is an aquatic plant, which requires much more water to bring it to perfection than rice does. The rice requires only to be kept in earth soaked with water, till it be in the state of pap. The nymphea grows best when covered