"I read a day or two ago, in the United Service Journal, that you had some thoughts of preparing a Nautical Dictionary for publication; and from your connection with that journal, or at least your acquaintance with our friend the editor, I am led to fear that the report may be true. You will understand the use of the word fear when I tell you that, for nearly three years, my own thoughts have turned in the same direction, and I have been busily preparing for a task to which I meant to buckle to with a will, and to which I meant to devote some four or five years of exclusive diligence. What I am anxious to know, as soon as may be, is the fact of your having undertaken a similar work, or not. For I assure you I am not so foolish, nor so insensible either to my own peace of mind or my own reputation; nor am I so careless of your good opinion and regard, as to enter the lists with you. I repeat, neither my feelings nor my judgment would permit me in any way to cross your hawse, if indeed, as I too much fear, you have got before me. There is one other man in the service besides yourself, and only one, with whom no consideration would induce me to enter into competition—and that is Beaufort—but his hands, I presume, are full enough, and I had somehow imagined yours were too. So much so, that you were one of the first men I meant to consult on my return to England, and to beg assistance from. I should not have minded the competition of any one else, but I am not so vain as to suppose that I could do the thing as well as either 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-service; and also to be intelligible to those young persons whom it is very important to instruct in general and even popular views, but for whom it would be needless to write a new elementary treatise. * * * *
"This is a sketch of my plan. What think you of it? I must add one thing, however, that you must be the senior officer on the occasion. I shall act in all this matter, and in the most perfect good faith, as your subordinate."
In responding to this full and frank overture, I entered into a few more particulars respecting my progress and purpose in the projected work; and invited him—on his return from France—to come at once to Bedford and ransack my papers.
Accordingly, in the autumn of 1836, Captain Basil Hall and his family—the whole of the Schloss Handfeldt party—arrived at my house, where he was located in a quiet library, with all my materials for the Naval Dictionary before him. Here he remained in close examination of them during two days, when he promised to send me his ultimatum in writing after due deliberation. He required time for this, seeing I had fairly warned him that my onerous undertakings would necessarily throw the heavier share of our performance upon his shoulders. On the 27th of November I received a letter from Edinburgh, in which he made this statement:—
"With respect to the Marine Dictionary I think we have come to a clear understanding—namely, that for the present it is standing fast. I certainly had a notion that I was an interloper, and as soon as I saw the vast deal you had done in the way of preparation, that it became me as a man of fair dealing, to back out. This does not, however, appear to have been your wish, but on the contrary that we may still make a joint work of it by-and-by, when we have leisure, both of us, to engage in it heartily—tooth and nail. I shall therefore keep it in my thoughts, and endeavour to shape my future plans so as to meet this view, and, should I see occasion, I can write to you about it. My present notion is, that if ever we do set about it, I must come to Bedford for a season, and give myself entirely up to the work, under your direction. The work, to be worth a straw, or at all what would be expected from you and me, would require no small labour on our parts, for a considerable length of time."
We consequently lay upon our oars for some time, but occasionally pulling a stroke or two to keep to the station, and be ready for head-way when required. While thus prepared, in 1842 my excellent and highly accomplished friend was most unexpectedly assailed by an afflicting malady, which at once reduced a brilliant mind to a distressing fatuity, which—after two lingering years—closed his valuable life, and clued up our arrangements.