Guide to the Guide to Journal of Edward Robarts (as filmed by the AJCP)

Memoir and Marquesan vocabulary, 1824 (File Adv. MS.17.1.18)

Edward Robarts began writing his memoir in Calcutta in 1811 at the request of Dr John C. Leyden, the Scottish-born authority on Asian languages. Robarts had been introduced to Leyden by his former employer Thomas Stamford Raffles. Leyden left Calcutta soon afterwards and died in Java in the same year. Robarts continued writing the narrative and at some time after 1814 he made a fair copy in a notebook. The narrative was completed in 1824 and Robarts sent the manuscript to James Hare, a Scottish surgeon who worked in Calcutta for many years...