From Heinrich Debus   Novbr 9. 1864 | Tuesday

Queenwood Coll¹ | Nov[em]b[e]r 9. 1864 | Tuesday.

My dear John,

I should be delighted to be present at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Soc and see you receive your well merited medal.² It is a very graceful act on the part of the Society to bestow this medal on you, because I know no other scientific man who has a greater claim for this distinction than you possess. Count Rumford³ himself if he was still alive would have, I firmly believe, selected you with delight as the recipient of his mark of honour. I think there is no investigator at the present moment in existence who has laboured so patiently, so successfully, in Rumford’s own scientific field as you have done. Even if I was not your friend I should like to be present at the bestowale⁴ of a mark of honour on a man who has long ago deserved it. For it is well and becoming that such acts should be surrounded by all the solemnity at the command of earnest men and in the presence of all who are linked together by the great cause of science. My duties at Queenwood require my presence on Thursday morning at 9 o’clock, require me in fact the whole day as well as the following Friday. It is true I might get dispensation from this duty and accordingly I have been wavering about the course I ought to follow. After due consideration, remembering my late frequent visits to London, I have come to the conclusion that I ought to remain here and do my duties just as I have accepted to perform them. Under these circumstances it only remains for me to give you my hearty congratulations on this memorable occasion by letter and to express the hope that I may soon have the pleasure to meet you.

With my love to Tom— | Your ever H Debus

RI MS JT/1/D/35