“From the date of this letter, (Sep. 21st.) you will perceive how much longer our voyage has proved than at the beginning of it we hoped it would. Twenty weeks are completed since we left Portsmouth: the usual time a voyage of the kind occupies is about fifteen weeks. The chief part of our delay was between St. Iago, and the Cape of Good Hope. Before we arrived at St. Iago, we had fair and strong winds; and since we got round the Cape, the weather has proved most agreeable. A thousand anxious thoughts daily fill my mind on your account: separation from you has only tended to show how much my comfort depended on you: scarcely for two successive waking hours has your image been out of my remembrance. I am very anxious that you should come out to me; and I am very anxious respecting your voyage. You have little, humanly speaking, to fear from dangers of the sea. Your greatest inconvenience will arise from not having a person with whom you can communicate freely: to be under a restraint of this kind, for five months, is a greater evil than you can at present suppose. You will, no doubt, hear of some lady coming out, with whom you can take half of a cabin; and if such an opportunity offers, you need not hesitate to embrace it. But you will need to use great caution how you trust strangers; and by no means be too familiar with any of the passengers, till you have had time to observe their dispositions: the evil of a contrary conduct has appeared very strikingly with us; and still more so in some other of the ships of our fleet. It is very easy to assume an appearance of gaiety and good-humour, when people only meet occasionally, and for a short time; but when they come to live together, and are obliged to meet each other at every turn, without Divine grace, few tempers are found sufficiently accommodating to maintain that forbearance, and to make those concessions, which are absolutely necessary to peace and comfort. Hence, when by an unguarded confidence, persons of contrary dispositions and habits have committed themselves to each other, they soon become mutually disgusted; family circumstances are exposed; weaknesses ridiculed; and contempt and hatred follows. You see I write under the idea that you will not leave England till you hear of my arrival in India. I have only to add, that my health is much improved since I left you.