"Sir,—I have been indebted to the kindness and consideration of my friend Dr. Shaw, for a sight of your letter addressed to him the 10th of October last from Zanzibar. I shall not attempt to characterize it in the terms that best befit it. To do so, indeed, I should be compelled to resort to language 'vile' and unseemly as your own. Nor can there be any necessity for this. A person who could act as you have acted must be held by every one to be beneath the notice of any honourable man. You have addressed a virulent attack on me, to a quarter in which you had hoped it would prove deeply injurious to me; and this not in the discharge of any public duty, but for the gratification of a long-standing private pique. You sent me no copy of this attack, you gave me no opportunity of meeting it; the slander was propagated, as slanders generally are, in secret and behind my back. You took a method of disseminating it which made the ordinary mode of dealing with such libels impossible, while your distance from England puts you in a position to be perfectly secure from any consequence of a nature personal to yourself. Such being the case, there remains to me but one manner of treating your letter, and that is with the contempt it merits. My qualifications as a traveller are, I hope, sufficiently established to render your criticisms innocuous, and the medals of the English and French Geographical Societies may console me for the non-appreciation of my labours by so eminent an authority as yourself. As regards my method of dealing with the natives, the complete success of all my explorations, except that which started under the auspices of Brigadier Coghlan, will perhaps be accepted as a better criterion of its correctness than the carpings of the wretched sycophants whom you make to pander to your malignity at Zanzibar. Where the question between us is one of personal veracity, I can hardly think that your statements will have much weight with those who are aware of the cognomen acquired by you at Addiscombe, and which, to judge from your letter now under notice, I think you most entirely, richly deserve. I have only to add, in conclusion, that I shall forward a copy of this letter to Dr. Shaw, as well as to my publishers, and to Government—you mention your intention of writing to them—and that I shall at all times, in all companies, even in print if it suits me, use the same freedom in discussing your character and conduct that you have presumed to exercise in discussing mine.
"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
"Richard F. Burton.
"Captain C. P. Rigby."
7.
"India Office, 21st April, 1860.
"Sir,—I am directed by Sir Charles Wood to inform you that your letter of the 12th ultimo having been considered by him in Council, he cannot, with reference to the circumstances under which the expedition into Central Africa under your charge was undertaken, comply with your request to be reimbursed the amount of expenditure incurred by you over and above the Government allowance of £1000.
"I am, etc.,
"J. Cosmo Melvill.