82 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. V 



can, and give us credit for granting every facility 

 except the one means of publishing." 



Happily there was another way of publishing, if 

 the Admiralty would grant him time to arrange his 

 papers and superintend their publication. The 

 Royal Society had at their disposal an annual grant 

 of money for the publication of scientific works. If 

 the Government would not contribute directly to 

 publish the researches made under their auspices, the 

 favourable reception which his preliminary papers 

 had met with led Huxley to hope that his greater 

 work would be undertaken by the Royal Society. 

 If the leading men of science attested the value of 

 his work, the Admiralty might be induced to let him 

 stay in England with the nominal appointment as 

 assistant surgeon to H.M.S. Fisguard at Woolwich, 

 for "particular service," but with leave of absence 

 from the ship so that he could live and pursue his 

 avocations in London. There was a precedent for 

 this course in the case of Dr. Hooker, when he had 

 to work out the scientific results of the voyage of 

 the Erebus and Teiror. 



In this design he was fortified by his old Haslar 

 friend, Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Watt Reid, who 

 wrote : " They cannot, and, I am sure, will not wish 

 to stand in your way at Whitehall." Meanwhile, the 

 first person, naturally, he had thought of consulting 

 was his old chief, Sir John Richardson, who had great 

 weight at the Admiralty, and to him he wrote the 

 following letter before leaving Plymouth : 



