402 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAV. xx 



26 ABBEY PLACE, Nov. 11, 1866. 



MY DEAR DARWIN I thank you for the new edition 

 of the Origin, and congratulate you on having done with 

 it for a while, so as to be able to go on to that book of a 

 portion of which I had a glimpse years ago. I hear good 

 accounts of your health, indeed the last was that you 

 were so rampageous you meant to come to London and 

 have a spree among its dissipations. May that be true. 



I am in the thick of my work, and have only had 

 time to glance at your Historical Sketch. 



What an unmerciful basting you give " our mutual 

 friend." I did not know he had put forward any claim ! 

 and even now that I read it in black and white, I can 

 hardly believe it. 



I am glad to hear from Spencer that you are on the 

 right (that is my) side in the Jamaica business. But it 

 is wonderful how people who commonly act together are 

 divided about it. 



My wife joins with me in kindest wishes to Mrs. 

 Darwin and yourself Ever yours faithfully, 



T. H. HUXLEY. 



You will receive an elementary physiology book, not 

 for your reading but for Miss Darwin's. Were you not 

 charmed with Haeckel ? 



The "Jamaica business" here alluded to was 

 Governor Eyre's suppression of a negro rising, in the 

 course of which he had executed, under martial law, 

 a coloured leader and member of the Assembly, 

 named Gordon. The question of his justification in 

 so doing stirred England profoundly. It became the 

 touchstone of ultimate political convictions. Men 

 who had little concern for ordinary politics came 

 forward to defend a great constitutional principle 



