Note 37 — Chapter IX

In walking about the streets of the town we were permitted to enter, large slabs of cut granite were seen, which were presumed to be from China, where the walls of canals or streamlets are lined with it. But Dr. Pickering in his rambles discovered pieces that had been cut as if to form a monument, and remarked a difference between it and the Chinese kind. On one or two pieces he saw the mark No. 1, in black paint; the material resembled the Chelmsford granite, and it occurred to him that the stone had been cut in Boston.37 I did not hear of this circumstance until after we had left Sooloo, and have little doubt now that the interdiction against our gentlemen visiting some parts of the town was owing to the fact of the discovery of this plunder. This may have been the reason why they so readily complied with my demands, in order to get rid of us as soon as possible, feeling themselves guilty, and being unprepared for defence; for, of the numerous guns mounted, few if any were serviceable.