INTRODUCTION.
Tn public attention has of late been so much directed to our East Indian possessions, that any particulars concerning that portion of the globe may probably find a welcome from the general reader. It is under this impression that the following Letters are offered to the public. They were written during the years 1836, 37, 38, and 39, by a young married lady, who had accompanied her husband to Madras for the first time, and they are (with the necessary omission of family details) printed verbatim from the originals. ‘This will account for some abrupt- ness Of transition, and also for a colloquial familiarity of style, which might easily have been remedied if it had not been thought more advisable to give the correspondence in its genuine unsophisticated state.
Those who open the volume with an expectation of finding details relative to the wars and vicissitudes which have lately excited universal interest will be disappointed, aa the writer quitted India in 1840, Neither did she devote much attention to public affairs, though she cceastonally notices the apprehensions and opinions that were prevalent at the time. But first impressions, when they oceur incidentally ina familiar narrative, are amusing, and may sometimes be useful: such, indeed, con-
