Ferdinand von Mueller

1

The letter is addressed : ‘Honourable | Francis S. Dutton M.P. | Commissioner of Crown Lands | &c &c &c’and is marked 'Private'. Annotated: ‘File | FSD.’

Sir

I was much grieved to know that the collections of Mr Babbage had been sent to Victoria, for it is a great disparagement and injury to us as a colony. We hoped for them as a nucleus of an herbarium.

2

M returned the specimens to Adelaide once he had described them. Francis's complaint stands in sharp contrast to what he wrote to William Hooker some years later (G. Francis to W. Hooker, 25 March 1864 (published in Best (1986), pp. 166-7):

all the specimens I can prepare go to Dr Mueller for examinations; he is not less indefatigable as a friend than as a Botanist. Thus he had from me all the collections of plants of our explorers — Babbage, Waterhouse, Stuart. These collections are all scantily and carelessly made, yet imagining that Mr Bentham would like to see them I have sent the whole in my possession.

Victoria has already a large one, Müller will obtain all the credit of making them known to the English Government Botanist, Sir William Hooker, who looked to me for a description of them. Müller will publish his book of Victoria,

3

B62.03.03.

& claim a right to name all that are new among them, while I who suggested to the English Government through Sir William, the necessity of a general Australian Flora, and which they have now undertaken, at a cost of £1000, for the writing of it alone,

4

i.e. Bentham (1863-78).

have really no information to give. You seem, Sir, to suppose that I have taken up Botany as a novelty, It is not so, I was a Botanist at 10 years of Age, at that very early period I knew more than 300 Wild Plants When in London I was for 20 years a Fellow of the Linnaean Society, one of the highest natural societies in the world, I was for a long period one of the Council of the London Botanical Society, The Mathematical Society, the Microscopical Society, and am still of the Linnaean and Horticultural Societies. For 12 years I was professor of Botany at a London Hospital, am the author of 17 books, several of them Botanical, & am now in correspondence with many of the older & better botanists, as Sir W. Hooker Dr Lindley &c. Thus I am not assumed by the other hemisphere to be ignorant, however I may be here. The difference between Dr Mueller & myself is that he receives £600 a year & has only scientific & mental employment. I with half the sum have uninterrupted manual labor merely like a foreman, with evening and Sunday occupation also, have no time then to make myself known as a Botanist or to explore the country. In the forth coming English work therefore I fear that our colony will come badly off in comparison with others — Mr Drummond had 600# a year for exploring Swan River, Mr Cunningham the same for the Moreton Bay district, and both of them were allowed to sell their surplus collections after a certain number of specimens had been supplied to the Home Government. This will soon be the only colony of Australia, without its published Flora. Dr J. Hooker has just completed very elaborate ones of Tasmania & New Zealand.

5

Respectively J. Hooker (1860), published in fascicles from 1855, and J. Hooker (1853-5).

Although it is too late now to prevent Dr Muëller taking advantage of our collections, yet I sincerely hope you will send for them back again, and if another expedition is fitted out, that means will be taken to collect a good quantity, not of paltry slips ripped off the tops of things, without beauty or character, but such as are valuable to preserve, and with duplicates to give away, by this latter means alone we shall be enabled to collect others in exchange.

There were seeds upon very many of the plants sent a[lso.]

6

Paper damaged, part of word missing.

I have refrained from informing the Committee of the disposal of these plants, but as they asked me 2 or 3 times before I had them, if I knew any thing of them, I fear one or other of them will do so again and I should be sorry, that vexation or dissatisfaction should arise.

Honble F. S. Dutton MP

&c &c &c

Jan 31, 1859