[A83]

9 Medina Villas Hove

West Brighton

June 10th 1882

My dear Sir,

Your letter of May 25^th only reached me yesterday having gone to Fernhurst my former residence and then to Bournemouth. Your Father is as vividly in my mind's eye, as if it was only a week ago that I was in the Beagle with him, his genial

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[in another hand] Mellersh

smile and conversation can never be forgotten by any one who saw them and heard them. I was sent on two or three missions away in a boat with him, on some of his scientific excursions and always looked forward to these trips with great pleasure, an anticipation that unlike many other

[83v]

others, was always realised. I think he was the only man I ever knew, against whom I never heard a word said, and as people when shut up in a ship for five years are apt to get cross with each other, that is saying a good deal. Certainly we were always so hard at work, we had no time

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to quarrel, but if we had done so I feel sure that your Father would have tried (and have been successful) to throw oil on the troubled waters.

I am, my dear Sir

Yours very truly

A. Mellersh