To Joseph Hooker   6 November 1873

Private ¹

Melbourne

6/11/73.

I felt sure, dear Dr Hooker, that you would support my view of declining on principle a transfer of my services to the University, even if a vacancy had occurred, which was not the case, and even if my pulmonary suffering did not prevent me from entering on any regular course of lectures.² I thought it also my duty to the Directors, whose colleague I have been so long, not to set a dangerous precedent. Your emphatic approval of my refusing to be tossed about from place to place, gives me a great moral support, as I can mention to influential friends here your views with every propriety.³ That you with your great friends will come to the rescue, inspires me with new hope for the future! Indeed I stand in need of that rescue in my undeserved persecution, which indeed is utterly without example. Of course my feelings, which are naturally those of generosity and kindness, have become at last so embittered that I am hardly able to control my expressions and actions [now].

Under the late Mr Haines, the late Mr Nicholson, Mr OShanassy and the late Mr Heales I was treated for more than a dozen of years as Director with every consideration and was fairly though never lavishly supported. My intercourse with all these ministers was of the most pleasing & friendly kind! So it is not my fault if I cannnot get on now.⁴ But after that my carreer has been marred here more or less by every one of my ministerial Chiefs through withholding the most modest but necessary means by their listening to ignorant and low men on the Argus and one or 2 other papers, by their taking not the slightest pain to acquaint themselves with my work and my requirements. Finally I was starved out at the Garden, and as I held still on, hoping for better time, I was ejected at a months notice, to make place for the utter unscientific cousin⁵ of the wife of the Minister of the Department. Then even no means were left me to carry on the branch of Gov Botanist, even if it was not highly derogatory to hold such an office without being held worthy to administrate the bot Garden, which in reality is the place and the organisation, in which my researches in any Direction are to obtain vitality.

Since I last wrote the usual "additional estimates" came before the Parliament I applied for what was needed, without the slightest allusion to anything partaining of the bot Garden. You are aware, that I had only £300 granted working expenses for my whole responsible and multifarious Departmental services, beyond my modest salary. Bear kindly in mind, that this is a very expensive country (not in all, but in most things). — So I applied for a collector £150, a laboratory operator £150, for Benthams subsidy £100; for a messenger and outdoor agent (consignments, freights &c) £120, for books and instruments, something, orphan-labor, an office room, a place for the physical necessities of life, (not even such is left me and my clerk), also for the purchase of additional Museum collections, for extension of the Museum Building (it being only one overcrowded room, to which nothing is added since 14 years! Of all these reasonable requests only the one concerning the item of £100 for Mr Bentham was granted by the Ministry, or rather Mr Francis, our present Prime Minister, while the other 78 members of the Lower House with 1 or 2 excepted would all as cheerfully have voted thousands of £ for me, as the[y] did vote £1300 last week on the additional estimates for the working of the Observatory, that institution having had granted already £2400 working expenses for this financial year, irrespective of the Directors Salary and irrespective of his and his many Assistants free quarters. You will see, therefore, my dear Dr Hooker, that it is intended willingly and studiously to starve me out of the remaining part of my official position, to put me down, and to render any real progress of my work and any extensive utility of my labors an utter impossibility. This is my impression, and there is not a single fact, which leads redeemingly to other conclusions.

If I had ever been a political agitator or had committed a single bad act, I could understand this; but as it is — I can’t, unless because I am of teutonic extraction, though I lived several years longer in Australia than all my life in Europe. The revenue is overflowing. This week many thousands £ defraudations and embezzlements in the Lands Department, extending over a long time, came to light; but the principle permanent officer⁶ spends largely his time, instead of looking after his proper duties, to lay out Gardens & Parks of the City and has swallowed up as a Chief over the new Curator also the bot Garden, its conservatories &c. altho his knowledge of plants consists in having mastered a few names of trees, which he first saw at the bot Garden or got from the Nurserymen

It is my duty towards myself to explain all this, otherwise you would form but a poor judgement of your former colleague. You must also remember, that we have universal suffrage, that everybody votes at 21 and upwards, that a few hundred voters form a constituency, that we have payment of members &c. Many of the members are not in affluent circumstances, and what operated much against me this year was the fact, that any rupture in Parliament would have caused a dissolution of the House, whose triennium expires next year, and thus the Members would sit only 2 1/2instead of 3 years. It is needless to assure you, that I gladly would turn my back upon the colony, but I cannot leave my 34 years collections of plants behind in the very midst of my work. I must yet try to shed additional light on the plants of Central and tropical Australia and must see the Monocotyledoneae through with Mr Benthams aid.

I could of course never think of taking office elsewhere at my age, and with the prospect of being treated just in the same manner after a few years at an other place. For any other position elsewhere of course a younger man or a local man is working up. I would become an interloper on him. I asked for a modest pension after 22 years servicebut it was refused.⁷ It would have been only the interest of a private fortune sunk by me into the Department. I could of course only accept a pension by being allowed the Honorary Direction of the Museum & Library and by being the Administrator of such fund as for the Museum & Publications may still be voted.

On one point, emanating from your very generous and noble letter,⁸ dear Dr Hooker, I must be allowed to differ with you. It is your idea, that you would perhaps be glad to have nothing to do with Kew Garden, if you could securely continue your literary work. I am not altogether surprised at this view of yours, preceiving that it was the view on the spur of a moment. But having long and carefully meditated on this subject, I cannot but warn you of the great danger of enunciating this idea. You would find yourself hampered at all sides. You could nolonger order a single thing about the most valuable & rare culture plants. You might be hindered proper access for study. You would be sure to be foiled on any attempt to order upon any thing. You would not save time, but would waste it in circumlocution and jealous hinderances and in want of means. Your votes would be seized on; indeed you could no longer go to the Garden without pain. No! my dear Dr Hooker, remain generalissimus, but keep good & faithful officers under you; then your administration will be easy & fruitful; not otherwise. You want an hours daily exercise and that hour is quite sufficient for your giving your orders as a Horticultural Director. What interest could it be to you to bring through correspondents new plants, new seeds &c into England, unless you could keep them under your own control.⁹

You might see Mr Michie about me, the present Victorian Agent General. He did for years show himself kindly to me, but as he was Attorney General to the last M'Culloch Ministry, his good feelings were for a time (he being misled) alienated from me. The step however you propose is kind & good! It was not instigated by me. It will bring men in power here to shame.

As yet I have no assurance, that the Library will be left me, though the correspondence on the subject¹⁰ came to a stand still, but it may be brought to a climax after a few weeks, when Parliament is to be dissolved or rather expires. Whether I am to be provided for again on the estimates I do not know. Perhaps not! I have sold everything off, to keep on with my service. I keep two people on my private expense for Departmental duties, pay for Office rent, House rent &c. But what can I do in this expensive country with £300! as the whole working expense of a Department! You might kindly see not only the hon Mr Michie, but also Lord Canterbury, and some means might be devised then to bring European Influence to bear not merely on the paltry financial question, but on that of professional honor & position particularly.

Always Your

Ferd von Mueller

Sir Hercules Robinson is here on a visit; though 17 years in correspondence with him I am ashamed to show myself before him, after I am driven out of the Directorship.

Could you kindly give me an estimate of your annual Museum expense altogether, including building, prints, light[,] paper, [tons] fuel, books, journals, clerks, Assistants &c, freights, travelling expenses, postage, stationary

With £300 Salary at the bot Garden I could do more than with £800 out of it. My impression is, that the increase was [merely] given, in order to be able to have some excuse to fall back on though my ruin was inflicted¹¹