I have had very great pleasure in examining your drawings of animals observed during the voyage of the “Rattlesnake,” and have also fully availed myself of the opportunity of going over the collections made during the course of the survey upon which you have been engaged.  I can say without exaggeration that more important or more complete zoological researches have never been conducted during any voyage of discovery in the southern hemisphere.  The course you have taken of directing your attention mainly to impreservable creatures, and to those orders of the animal kingdom respecting which we have least information, and the care and skill with which you have conducted elaborate dissections and microscopic examinations of the curious creatures you were so fortunate as to meet with, necessarily gives a peculiar and unique character to your researches, since thereby they fill up gaps in our knowledge of the animal kingdom.  This is the more important, since such researches have been almost always neglected during voyages of discovery.  The value of some of your notes was publicly acknowledged during your absence, when your memoir on the structure of the Medusae, communicated to the Royal Society, was singled out for publication in the “Philosophical Transactions.”  It would be a very great loss to science if the mass of new matter and fresh observation which you have accumulated were not to be worked out and fully published, as well as an injustice to the merits of the expedition in which you have served.

The latter offered to write to the Admiralty on his behalf, giving the weight of his name to the suggestion that the work to be done would take at least twelve months, and that therefore his appointment to the “Fisguard” should not be limited to any less period.] “They might be disposed,” [wrote Huxley to him,] “to cut anything I request down—­on principle.” [Moreover, Owen, Forbes, Bell, and Sharpey, all members of the Committee of Recommendation of the Royal Society, had expressed themselves so favourably to his views that in his application he was able to relieve the economic scruples of the Admiralty by telling them that he had a means of publishing his papers through the Royal Society.

The result of his application, thus backed, was that he obtained his appointment on November 29.  It was for six months, subject to extension if he were able to report satisfactory progress with his work.

A long letter to his sister, now settled in Tennessee, gives a good idea of his aims and hopes at this time.]

41 North Bank, Regent’s Park.

November 21, 1850.

My dearest Lizzie,