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[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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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but that it was of too private a nature to mention in public."

Believe me, dear Sir,

Yours faithfully

Hamond

Francis Darwin, Esq.