358 THE RETURN FROM INDIA 
you, and I am half inclined to send it to the Crimea [Mum'o 
was then a Major and on active service], as if you are obliged 
or inclined to throw it away we can give you another. 
Thomson paid all the expenses of printing, pubUshing, and 
distributing, and I have offered the E.I.C. to continue and 
conclude it, if they will only pay at the rate of £200 for 
every 1000 species described, and I offer to get it printed 
and published free of all further expense to them and of 
any remuneration to the authors, also I would engage 
myself to stick to it for ten years at that rate. Hitherto 
they have given Thomson no reimbursement for any of his 
expenses, though he spent a year beyond his furlough at it 
upon no pay at all. 
The financial fate of the book was very disappointing. 
It is recorded in another letter to Munro, December 21, 1856. 
I am so disheartened about Flora Indica and the knavish 
conduct of the Court of Directors, that I have done nothing 
more to it ; as soon, how^ever, as I get Fl. Tasman. off my 
hands I shall retm-n to it with zest ; and devise some dodge 
to give John Company a Roland for his OUver. You are 
' aware, I think, that after paying all the expenses of the 
1st vol. we put a merely nominal price on the 130 copies 
we put out for sale (after giving away 120), and that John 
Company, after refusing to subscribe for copies, or promote 
the work, or repay the authors, on hearing how cheap it 
was, bought wp 100 coipies unknown to us, which threw the 
work out of print, and left us £200 out of pocket, and our 
object defeated ! I never was so sold in my hfe. I have 
begged and implored in vain that they give back the copies, 
and I have offered back not only the money but to give 
them gratis 100 copies of the Introductory Essay. As to 
poor Thomson, they will not give him Is. for time or labour 
or expenses. Have not we a good growl ? 
The political sequel of 1857 of course precluded any scheme 
of tit for tat. Hooker enjoyed the grim suggestion that the 
dissolution of the East India Company was a retribution for 
this meanness as w^ell as other more serious shortcomings. 
After Thomson's return to India the two friends continued 
to work together, and from 1858-61 pubhshed in the Journal 
