WCP3558

Letter (WCP3558.3455)

[1]1

Keppels Head, Portsea2

Feb[ruary]. 8th. 1854

Dear Sir3

The "Frolic's"4 sailing orders were recalled today, & she was ordered to cruise for a fortnight in the English Channel & then return to Spithead. Whether she is to go to Australia or not at last, no one knows, so I came on shore today lugging all my chattels. The "Juno"5 is here & her Captain6 is in Town, but is expected down daily. I have therefore written a letter to the Admiralty of which the other side is a copy7 & am left to exercise patience here as much [2] as on the Amazon. I received your letter with the "papers" this morning for which I am much obliged.

Capt[ai]n. Nolloth8 is very agreeable & we get on very well together & the officers are a remarkably pleasant set, so the prospect of being turned over to some ship where everything might not run so smooth is not very pleasing. Capt[ai]n. Freemantle of the Juno is not spoken well of, but I should be glad of any certainty for the disagreeable suspense I have been & am I in.

Hoping I may get an answer by tomorrow evening.

I remain | Yours very sincerely | Alfred R Wallace [signature]

Dr. Norton Shaw.

P.S.9 By all means propose me as a fellow of the R[oyal]. G[eographical]. S[ociety].10 I wrote to Reeve11 to send the Book.12 A. R. W. [signature]

1
The document bears a later annotation in another hand, perhaps that of the recipient "1854 | A R. Wallace | "Feb[ruary]. 8th."
2
A hotel on The Hard, Portsea, Hampshire, UK, dating from 1779 and rebuilt in 1803 (UK Pub History and London. 2018. Keppels Head Hotel, 24, 25 & 26 The Hard, Portsea, Hampshire. Portsmouth pubs history. <https://pubshistory.com/Hampshire/Portsea/KeppelsHead.shtml> [accessed 11 July 2018]).
3
Shaw, Henry Norton ( -1868). British Royal Navy Surgeon and Diplomat; Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, London.
4
HMS Frolic, British Royal Navy Sloop, 16 guns, launched 1842 and sold 1864 (Winfield, R. 2014. British Warships in the Age of Sail 1817-1863: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. [p. 263]).
5
HMS Juno, British Royal Navy frigate, 26 guns, launched 1844, lost 1880 (Winfield, R. 2014. British Warships in the Age of Sail 1817-1863: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. [p. ***]).
6
Fremantle, Stephen Grenville (1810-1860). British Royal Navy officer; Captain, HMS Juno, Australian Station, 1853-1857, but not employed afterwards, having been accused of unnecessarily harsh discipline on board this ship (Royal Museums Greenwich. N.d. Fremantle, Stephen Grenville, Captain, 1810-1860. National Maritime Museum. Archive Catalogue. <http://collections.rmg.co.uk/archive/objects/491758.html> [accessed 11 July 2018]).
7
For this copy, see WCP4306.4434.
8
Nolloth, Matthew Stainton (1810-1882). British Royal Navy officer and hydrographer; commander of HMS Frolic, 1853-1856.
9
This postscript appears after the copy of the letter to the Second Secretary of the Admiralty found in WCP4306.4434.
10
The Royal Geographical Society, founded as the Geographical Society of London in 1830 for the promotion of the advancement of geographical science in Great Britain, later gained its Royal Charter in 1859 (Royal Geographical Society. N.d. History of the Society. The Royal Geographical Society. <https://www.rgs.org/about/the-society/history-and-future> [accessed 10 July 2018]). ARW was elected a fellow on 27 February 1854 (see WCP5611.6378 and Beccaloni, G. W. 2012. Honours Wallace Received. The Alfred Russel Wallace Website. <http://wallacefund.info/honours-wallace-received> [accessed 12 July 2018]).
11
Perhaps Reeve, Lovell Augustus (1814-1865). British conchologist and publisher.
12
Perhaps Wallace, A. R. 1853. A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, With an Account of the Native Tribes, and Observations on the Climate, Geology, and Natural History of the Amazon Valley. London: Reeve & Co.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP3558.3455)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Szentgyorgyi, Katherine [2012-10-17] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Watt, Helen [2018-07-30]

Please cite as “WCP3558,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 27 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3558