Melbourne botanic Garden,
14 July 1863
Sir Henry
I have the honor to inform your excellency that his Royal Majesty King Frederick III of Denmark has been graciously pleased to confer on me the knighthood of the Order of Dannebrog and commanded the insignia to be transmitted to me by this mail.
As an Officer of her Britanic Majestys Government I solicit, that your Excellency will be pleased to petition our gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, that the honor intended towards me by my former Sovereign may be recognized by the British Government, as under the auspicious and intimate relations now existing between the British and Danish Court1 it will be to me a double source of honor to be acknowledged as a Danish Knight.
I would add the request, that your Excellency will as her Majestys representant amongst us, kindly grant the acceptance of this honor to me until her Majestys pleasure may have decided.2
I have the honor to be,
your Excellencys
most humble
Ferd. Mueller.
His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly KCB
&c &c &c3
In transmitting this request to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Barkly wrote on 17 July 1863: 'I can add nothing to the encomium which I pronounced on Dr Mueller's public and private character ... [when transmitting his request that he be permitted to accept the knighthood in the French Legion of Honour], — but — knowing well the importance he attaches to his British Citizenship, I may perhaps be permitted further to state, that he would value the slightest [illegible] of the Queen's approbation of his labours, more highly than these Titles, or the forty three minor distinctions which he already enjoys, — and though I am well aware that Honors are more frequently and lavishly bestowed on men of science abroad than at home, I yet venture to indulge the hope that it may some day be practicable to evince such a recognition of his merits on the part of his adopted country.’ The request to accept the Dannebrog Order was denied as ‘quite at variance with the Regulations respecting Foreign Orders' (National Archives, London, CO 309/63, f. 476).
For Barkly's comments on the application to accept the knighthood in the Legion of Honour, see notes to M to H. Barkly, 23 March 1863 (in this edition as 63-03-23d). Fot a discussion of the Regulations concerning Foreign Orders, see notes to C. Darling to the Duke of Newcastle, 22 February 1864 (in this edition as M64-02-24),
Please cite as “FVM-63-07-14,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/63-07-14