Even by the standards of the time, the letters reveal him to be a bigot, though the impression is one of bumbling insularity rather than jack-booted malevolence. Indians are invariably referred to as ‘blacks’, ‘blackamoors’, ‘natives’ or even ’niggers‘. They are ’dark and ill-smelling‘, their food is ’very strange and frightening’ and they ‘do not improve with acquaintance’.
