342 LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 



To be ignorant of natural history is certainly no discredit to the 

 gentleman you commissioned, and I have no wish to speak of his 

 labours with disparagement ; I merely regret that he should so 

 confidently have volunteered an opinion in his official report, that 

 he had selected all the books and instruments which " could be in 

 any way useful for scientific purposes on any expedition ;" and 

 that you, in the face of the science of the whole country, should 

 have so complacently signified your concurrence in the statement. 

 Your own attainments in botany, before botany became a science, 

 should have prompted the reflection, that the field of human sci- 

 ence is too vast to justify even one member of the corps in judg- 

 ing of the wants of others in distinct departments. The truth of 

 this position is illustrated by your present defective preparations 

 for scientific researches. After obstinately refusing to assemble 

 the scientific corps, and assign to each member his respective 

 duty since December last, though frequently urged to do so, you 

 now find the " leading objects" of the enterprise almost entirely 

 unprovided for. 



On the fourth of this month you put the corps on duty, and 

 gave them the means to prepare for the voyage. They are now, 

 as I learn, actively employed ; and, by ransacking public and pri- 

 vate libraries, may, it is hoped, remedy the evils occasioned by 

 your imperfect and tardy arrangements. Thus you find, sir, that 

 after an interval of fifteen months, and subsequent to your official 

 announcement that all the tools of the naturalists were provided, 

 books have still to be imported, and orders now to be given for 

 the construction of instruments / / / If this be good faith in the 

 discharge of a high trust committed to your hands, then I should 

 be glad to know what may be deemed a dereliction of duty. 



In the sentence already quoted, you inform us, " no one has yet 

 been assigned to the department of astronomy, geography, and 

 hydrography." I have understood the selection of a competent 

 person for this station has given you much solicitude, and that you 

 have not even yet been successful in finding one whom you could 

 approve. I am not sorry that in this matter you have been dis- 

 appointed, because I unfeigriedly believe that the appointment of 

 an astronomer to the expedition would be an act of injustice to 

 the naval officers employed, who, from their attainments and pro- 

 fession, might be relied on for the hydrographical labours to be 



