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NAVY PEOSPECTS 165 



Unlikely as it is, there is a possibility of your not being able 

 to help me five months hence, and how foolish I should be 

 to have thrown away the certainty of promotion for the 

 uncertainty of anything else ! I also told him that I had 

 no idea of being applied for, until our arrival in England ; 

 but as he was good enough to do so before, I should take 

 advantage of his offer, provided that he would not be offended 

 at my throwing away that offer on my arrival, adding, that 

 I believed and expected I should be worth being employed' 

 by you for my living ; that nothing but absolute necessity 

 should make me enter the ordinary service ; and that it 

 was highly improbable that I should ever feel myself at 

 liberty to enter any Government Expedition, which would 

 employ me more than ten or twelve months. I have no 

 wish to be a drag on the service by remaining in it and not 

 serving ; and when I explained this to him, he answered, 

 * it would be a piece of great injustice in the Navy to employ 

 me in any way but Natl. Hist.,' and said a great many 

 flattering things which I divided by two, and appropriated 

 one half (perhaps the better). He also told me that he 

 would apply for a sum of money to defray the publica- 

 tion of the Natl. Hist., the Botany of which should be 

 recommended to me ; and that I ought to be employed 

 still on pay (perhaps half -pay), in the service, till they were 

 done, as very inadequate compensation for my trouble ; 

 to this, of course, I had no objections, except on the grounds 

 of passing the boards. On this head I am told the regulations 

 are altered, and that having a diploma from Edinbro*, I 

 am not required to pass anywhere but before Sir William 

 Burnett ; such was not the case when we sailed, but I am 

 told is now ; a matter of very great consequence, as I have 

 no notion of working up to pass Edinbro' again, which would 

 cost three to five months' study in classes. 



The long and short of the matter being— that Capt. 

 Eoss must either apply for my promotion, or write home 

 and state that I would not take it if offered me, I of course 

 (having no competency of my own) took the promotion 

 offer, being at liberty to decline it on my arrival in England, 

 without giving him offence for having put him to trouble 

 for nothing. I took two days to think over the matter 

 before giving him a final answer, and hope you will approve 

 of what I have done. I weighed the question in all its 



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