The following is an extract from the letter of the London correspondent of the Calcutta Englishman:-

I have lately seen several persons, chiefly of the maritime service, who have come home in the expectation of getting employment out of the ports of London or Liverpool. It will be a charity to warn all who have intentions of coming to England with similar views, that unless they happen to have very powerful interest - interest which can set aside the just claims of old and deserving officers - it is madness to leave India. I assure you that the Jerusalem Coffee House, the Docks, the Broker's Offices, swarm with men of the first respectability, and the highest character, who have held the command of merchantmen, who would now gladly get bread even as second mates, but who find it absolutely impossible to obtain a chance.

You will scarcely believe, but it is nevertheless a fact, that I know several exceptions, who not very long since sailed out of Calcutta, to whom the sight of a guinea, that they could call their own, would be a novelty. Of course I cannot mention names, but if any of the nautical readers of the Englishman disregard this caution and add them selves to the number of hopeless candidates, they will be but too painfully, assured of the melancholy facts.

SG & SGTL ; Vol 4 ; Page 112.

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