ther of
you--and therefore, even if I were not restrained by motives of personal
friendship, I should never dream of risking my reputation for
professional, scientific, or literary attainments by a struggle in which
I should certainly be worsted."

To this hearty and laudatory interpellation, an immediate reply was
returned, stating that I had long held the subject in view, but that
other weighty avocations occasioned its hanging fire, and had compelled
me to suspend it _sine die_. Still I considered such a work necessary to
the current wants, as well those of seafarers as of the landsmen who
evince a taste for nautical matters; and that, from his profession and
literary prowess, I knew of no one better fitted for the task than
himself--adding that, under the emergency, my papers were at his
service, and I would occasionally give him such personal aid as might
lie in my power. This was acknowledged in a long explicatory letter, of
which the following are extracts:--

"I trust I know the value of a compliment as well as any man, and I can
say, with perfect truth, that in the whole of my career (such as it has
been), professional, scientific, or literary, no compliment--I may say
no circumstance--has occurred which has given me so much honest
gratification as your letter of the 3d. I know you are a man not to say
what you do not truly think, nor to express yourself strongly where you
have not observed carefully. I shall therefore not disclaim your
compliment, but rather seek, in a kindred spirit, to work up to the mark
which you assign me--and which I know but too well how far I am short
of.

"I do hope, indeed, that as you say, 'we may row in the same boat
without catching crabs;' but of this I am quite resolved, not to cross
your hawse, nor to interfere with your project, which you have alluded
to as having already commenced. That is to say, I shall not interfere
unless I can be of use to it and to you, and with your full concurrence,
and, as I hope, your companionship. * * * *

"What I should propose would be, that you should furnish the
professional technicalities in all the different branches, and that I
should endeavour to popularize them. Here and there--as in the matter of
Navigation--I also might intrude with some few technicalities. But
generally speaking it would be you who should provide the real solid
stuff, and I who should attempt to dress it up so as to be intelligible
_beyond_ the limits of the sea-s