380 FINAL BOTANICAL WOEK 



light on one's family affairs, they are very disappointing. 

 He seems to have confided everything to D. T. His affairs 

 and difficulties with publishers, booksellers, printers, Euro- 

 pean and colonists, are minutely detailed and advice asked, 

 but there is nothing in this that could interest the public. 



His Scotch expeditions would have been interesting 

 had he described them or kept a diary, but you cannot even 

 trace his routes ; of one journey as far as the Hebrides, 

 before 1805, there is only an incidental allusion ! He must 

 have kept a journal of one of the long journeys, probably 

 with Borrer, for he consults D. T. about publishing it. Of 

 his several Continental journeys there are no routes or par- 

 ticulars, except in one letter to your mother, and no mention 

 even of the Botanists he saw, or Museums or Herbaria < 



On his return from Iceland, several years before his 

 marriage, he was put by D. T. and Mr. Paget into the Hales- 

 worth Brewery to have the business under Mr. James Turner, 

 D. T.'s brother, who went stark mad. 



My father seems to have spent most or all of his time 

 on his own botanical works (which cost him large sums, as 

 did purchase of books) and in trips to London. The Brewery 

 went down apace, and was sold at a great loss. Meanwhile 

 a large portion of his fortune, originally large (he sold the 

 land alone for 20,000) was put into the Spanish funds, and 

 realised in the long run from 200 in all. 



The account of Mr. J. Turner's madness is gruesome 

 reading. My father was persuaded to take him to sea for 

 a month, with Mrs. T. and several gentlemen ; they hired 

 a pilot boat and the conduct of the lunatic was disgusting 

 to a degree. The weather being stormy they abandoned 

 the vessel and visited all the towns in Holland and some in 

 Belgium, dragging the wretched creature with them ! On 

 their return he was put into an asylum, which he never left I 

 believe. 



Kuin was evidently staring my father in the face, when 

 he obtained the Glasgow Professorship ; for I should say 

 he had before his marriage been living on his capital. At 

 Glasgow he began to save, as much by his publications as 

 by the rapidly increasing classes, and improved Exam, fees 

 and Regius grants, but he was always seeking for a position 

 in London, and the letters are full to satiety of disappointed 



