Soon after Clapperton’s return to London from his first expedition to Africa, he wrote to the friend with whom he had lived during his residence in Edinburgh, expressing the pleasure which he felt in being again in Britain, and informing him, that since his arrival in London, he had been so busily employed in making out reports to government, that he had not a moment’s leisure to attend either to pleasure or friendship. In a subsequent letter, he told him, that along with his other duties and avocations, he had to prepare his part of the “journal of the expedition,” that it might be ready for publication before his departure on the second mission. “I have got,” says he, “no sinecure in this new appointment. I have to see the whole of the presents sent off without any one to assist me. My Journal will scarce be complete before I go, and the necessary attendance at the public offices is truly harassing.” In a letter of a later date, he says “You cannot have any idea of the infinite trouble and anxiety I have had since I have been in London. If I receive honour and praise, they are assuredly earned with labour and pain. The whole of the arrangements for the new mission have fallen upon me. To give you an outline of what I am to do, or where I am to go, is at present impossible, but when I get to sea I shall write to you more fully.” From Portsmouth, 27th August, 1825, he tells the same correspondent, “We leave England this morning; and as far as I am concerned, I have experienced nothing but misery and trouble since my arrival, and look forward to our voyage for peace and rest.” In this letter, he mentions that Mr. Brown of the Linnæan Society had called one of the plants in Dr. Oudney’s collection by the name of that lamented gentleman, and after sending compliments and remembrances to several of his intimate acquaintances, he bids an affecting, and, as it proved, a final farewell to his “dear friend.”