419 LETTERS RESPECTING AFRICA, FROM J. G. JACKSON AND OTHERS, On the Plague.

To JAMES WILLIS, Esq. late Consul to Senegambia.

London, October 30. 1804* My dear Sir, A OUR letter reached my hands yesterday ; but I am afraid I shall not be able to satisfy you in every enquiry which you have made relative to the plague in Barbary in 1799. I have, however, no doubt but the plague which has prevailed in Spain has originated from it. Some of the following observations may probably be of service to you.

It does not appear to be ascertained how the plague originated in Fas in the year 1799. Some persons have ascribed it to infected merchandise received at Fas from the East ; whilst others maintain that the locusts which had infested Western Barbary during seven years, destroying the crops, the vegetables, and every green thing, even to the bark of the trees, produced such a scarcity, that the poor could obtain scarcely E E 2