Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here see Wills (1863), pp. 361-2 (B63.01.02).

Melbourne, December 21st, 1861.

My Very Dear Doctor,

I need not assure you that I shall be but too happy to render you any services within my power, and especially such as are connected with doing justice to your poor and great son.

Having been duly authorized by you to secure the pistol of your late son, I will take an early opportunity to claim it for you and bring it to your son Thomas.

2

Dr. William Wills subsequently sued John Macadam 'as secretary to the Exploration Committee, for the recovery of the pistol found in the hand of the corpse of Burke, the ground for the claim being that the pistol belonged to Dr Wills's son, who had lent it to Burke' ( Argus , 25 January 1862, p. 4). It was later given to Dr Wills; see Macadam's explanation in Parliament on 12 June 1862 in responding to a comment about 'some property that had been legally recovered from him', that 'he considered that he would have forfeited his trust if he had allowed that article to pass from the colony without there being the most absolute proof that the pistol really was Mr Wills'' ( Age (Melbourne), 13 June 1862, p. 6).

I will also very gladly do what I can in restoring to you any property I may hear of as belonging to your lamented son William. As soon as Professor Neumayer returns, we can learn with exactness what instruments were your son's. I will also inquire about the telescope. I believe I forgot mentioning to you, that it would be a source of the highest gratification to me to call some new plant by the name of the family, who claim as their own, one of now imperishable fame. But I will not be unmindful that, in offering an additional tribute, humble as it is, to your son's memory, it will be necessary to select for the

Willsia

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, a plant as noble in the Australian flora as the young savant himself who sacrificed his life in accomplishing a great national and never-to-be-forgotten enterprise.

3

M did not erect a genus

Willsia

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, but named Eremophila willsii in B62.04.01, pp. 21-2 and plate XX. See M to W. Wills, 5 January 1862.

Trusting, my dear and highly valued friend, that the greatness of the deed will, to a certain extent, alleviate your grief and sorrow for an irreparable loss, and that Providence may spare you long in health and happiness, for your family.

W. Wills, Esq., M.D.