WCP5607

[1]

Hurstpierpoint.

March 28th, 1867.

My dear Hanbury

Herewith I send you the Cheque for £500, & I have advised Ransom & Bouverie¹ of having drawn on them for that am[oun]^t in your favour.

In asking you to invest it for me to the best of your judgment I should not like to have it cause trouble or loss of time to you. I sh am obliged for the steps you have already taken, & in looking over your letters I w[oul]^d like to say that if, from any motive whatever your brother thinks proper to withdraw from his first offer, I should be very unwilling to press it upon him. In Railway investments, in any part of the world, I confess I have no faith. I believe our friend Wallace has already been considerably let in by Brazilian Railways². However you are much more in the way of correct information about Indain Railways than I am.

Were I to lend or invest the money purely at interest, I daresy I should diminish the capital by £50 or £100 at a time, should it be needful, rather than by the sum required to make up the income from that source 50£ a year. Possibly I might not need it ^{to do so}, for I have still a little money to come in.

Now that summer is approaching I begin to speculate on the possibility of removing into Yorkshire, to Welburn by Castle-Howard. Last year I intended to do it but I was too weak to travel at all. I doubt that even now I could make that long journey, even although I [2] could get anybody to accompany me. My malady, in all its phases, is constant to but me — namely a constant increasing torpor & numbness, so that the day may be near when I shall be unable to move at all. I wish however I was at Welburn, where I have a few friends, and where I could live as well (or better) for £80 a year as here for £120. The climate was what held me back from establishing myself there from at my first coming to England, for the winters are dreadfully severe — springs not much better.

I have postponed writing to you for a few days to be [one illeg. word struck through] able to enclose a few lines to Mello³, in answer to his note which you lately sent me. He proposes to me to make all the observations he can on Curcubitaceae if I will undertake to determine his specimens & put his work into shape. I should have liked nothing better had I been able to do it; but I cannot work even at my own plants. After gathering plants for so many years, I hoped to spend the remainder of my life in examining and describing them; but it cannot be, & I must perforce limit myself to such work as may be done lying on one's back. However I have indicated to Mello how he may without any aid make many valuable observations on those plants. If he does that, I would willingly translate his memoir, should I still be able.

I have seen no Proof of the paper of ^on Papayaceae⁴ — I sh[oul]^d like to see one because printers are apt to metamorphose names of places &c.

[3] I know that you will kindly excuse the trouble I give you and believe me

Yours ever faithfuly | Rich^d Spruce [signature]

D[aniel]. Hanbury Esq.