WCP3643

Letter (WCP3643.3546)

[1]1

Foreign Office

March 1. 1854

Sir,

With reference to my Letter of the 24th Ultimo I am directed by the Earl of Clarendon2 to inform you that a Passage for yourself and your Servant3 to Singapore has been ordered on board the Contract Mail Steam Packet4 which will leave Southampton on the 4th Instant, and that5 [2] the Expences [sic] of the Passage will be defrayed by this Office.

I am, | Sir, | Your most obedient | humble Servant, | Wodehouse [signature]6

1
The document was once folded into four and bears a later endorsement in another hand on what would have been the outer fold: "1854 | Foreign Office | Rec[eive]d, March 1st.". There are later additions in pencil to this endorsement, presumably made during cataloguing at the Royal Geographical Society, so that it now reads: "1854 March 1st | Foreign Office | Rec[eive]d, March 1st. | [to Wallace, A. R.]". The name and address of the addressee appear at the foot of page 1 in the bottom left-hand corner: "A. R. Wallace Esqr. | 3 Waterloo Place".
2
Villiers, George William Frederick (1800-1870). Fourth earl of Clarendon; British diplomat and statesman; Foreign Secretary, 1852-1858.
3
Allen, Charles Martin (1839-1892). ARW's assistant in the Malay Archipelago, the Moluccas and New Guinea.
4
ARW sailed from Southampton to Alexandria on board Euxine, a steam-ship of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, on 4 March 1854 (Wallace, A. R. 1905. My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions, 2 vols. London, UK: Chapman & Hall, Ltd. [vol. 1, p. 332]; The Hampshire Advertiser. Saturday, 4 March 1854. Southampton Mail Steam Shipping. Peninsular and Oriental Company. Findmypast. < https://search.findmypast.co.uk>).
5
The catchword "the" appears here on the line underneath.
6
Wodehouse, John (1826-1902). Third baron Wodehouse, 1846; first earl of Kimberley, 1866; British politician. This letter is apparently written in an unknown hand, but signed by Wodehouse.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP3643.3546)]

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 “WCP3643,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 30 November 2023, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP3643