RECORD: Hamond, Robert Nicholas. 1882.09.19. [Recollections of Darwin]. CUL-DAR112.A54-A55. Edited by John van Wyhe (The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Kees Rookmaaker, edited by John van Wyhe 8.2008. RN1
NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with the permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
[in another hand] Hamond
Weybourne
Holt
Sept. 19. 1882
Dear Mr. Darwin
I have to apologise for not having replied to your letter of the 12th sooner but absence from home and other engagement have prevented me. I have the most pleasant and happy
recollections of your father during the short intercourse I had with him while in the Beagle. From the fact of his having joined with me in a request to the Chaplain of Buenos Ayres, where we were then staying to have the sacrament of the Lords supper administered to us, previous to
going to Tierra del Fueago — We were both then young and looked on that Ordinance as many young did, and do, as I suppose they do now as a sort of how to lead a better life. Our request met with so cold a response and the necessity put on as of engaging others to come with us; that our purpose was not carried out, but it showed a disposition of mind I was glad to dwell on. Of course this was too delicate a passage in life to mention in public. I was at his funeral and a few days after at the annual meeting of the
South American Emissary meeting when one of the secretaries mentioned a conversation which had passed between your father and a distinguished naval officer who was also in the Beagle, knowing this anecdote from the mouth of the same officer
I rose to confirm it, and at the same time could not help saying "that I knew a circumstance in my intercourse with Mr Darwin which would tend to set aside much of the wrong impression that had gone abroad respecting him
but that it was of too private a nature to mention in public."
Believe me, dear Sir,
Yours faithfully
Hamond
Francis Darwin, Esq.
Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)
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