Ferdinand von Mueller

22/3/78

Strictly Private

I need not assure you, dear Mr Ramsay, that I will be happy to support your candidature at the R.S.,

1

Royal Society, London. Ramsay was never nominated for election to the Society (see Home (2003)).

but this months mail is gone. So perhaps you will advise me to whom to write. I will gladly write to our venerable friend Prof. Owen, who will likely be the next president,

2

Owen was never President of the Royal Society.

and if Lord Lewis's adress is given me,

3

Not identified. There was no Fellow of the Royal Society with this surname in 1878.

I will readily communicate with him also.

There is plenty of time till next mail. Can you confidentially give me some clue to the real feelings of Moore towards me? How is it, that he instead of bravely supporting my Directorship so eagerly recommends that I should accept the change, when I had nothing to accept, but was simply deprived homeless of my whole Department and thus thrown into abject poverty? How is that Mr Francis,

4

James Francis.

after seeing mere lawns and not even a glass-house (for £8000 a year there) at your Garden, so soon as he came back in 1873 from the Sydney conference, resolved, that there "must be here a change".

5

See C. Moore to J. Hooker, 24 February 1873 (in this edition as M73-02-24).

I never shall forget that ! Mr M. has promised me plants from Lord Howes Isl; but none have come for months;

6

See C. Moore to G. Bentham, 19 February 1876 (in this edition as M76-02-19).

he also tells me, that I shall have a set of his N. Guinea plants; perhaps his collector is not yet back.

My own impression is, that at least cautiously & indirectly he has contributed after all my generosity to him as much to my ruin & deep sadness & distress, as the man in Adelaide.

7

Richard Schomburgk.

Is jealousy the spring of this like at Kew? Hooker gives [me pur]posely

8

Paper damaged.

& studiously no support though (except Owen) all men of science rallied round him against Ayrton.

9

See MacLeod (1974).

H. wants merely collectors at the Colonial establishments & Kew is to monopolize all of British wri[ting]

10

Word partly illegible. There is no signature, suggesting that at least one page of the letter is missing.