I most heartily hope that your doleful apprehensions will prove unfounded. These changes from muggy weather to slight sharp frost, and back again, touch weak places, as I find by my own foot; but the touch goes by. May it prove so with you! Yesterday Captain ----, Captain ----, and Captain ----, dined at Gad's. They are, all three, naval officers of the highest reputation. ---- is supposed to be the best sailor in our Service. I said I had been remarking at home, _a propos_ of the _London_, that I knew of no shipwreck of a large strong ship (not carrying weight of guns) in the open sea, and that I could find none such in the shipwreck books. They all agreed that the unfortunate Captain Martin _must_ have been unacquainted with the truth as to what can and what can not be done with a Steamship having rigging and canvas; and that no sailor would dream of turning a ship's stern to such a gale--_unless his vessel could run faster than the sea_. ---- said (and the other two confirmed) that the _London_ was the better for everything that she lost aloft in such a gale, and that with her head kept to the wind by means of a storm topsail--which is hoisted from the deck and requires no man to be sent aloft, and can be set under the worst circumstances--the disaster could not have occurred. If he had no such sail, he could have improvised it, even of hammocks and the like. They said that under a Board of Enquiry into the wreck, any efficient witness must of necessity state this as the fact, and could not possibly avoid the conclusion that the seamanship was utterly bad; and as to the force of the wind, for which I suggested allowance, they all had been in West Indian hurricanes and in Typhoons, and had put the heads of their ships to the wind under the most adverse circumstances. I thought you might be interested in this, as you have no doubt been interested in the case. They had a great respect for the unfortunate Captain's character, and for his behaviour when the case was hopeless, but they had not the faintest doubt that he lost the ship and those two hundred and odd lives. Ever affectionately. [Sidenote: Mr. R. M. Ross.[78]] GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Monday, 19th February, 1866._ DEAR SIR, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter enclosing a copy of the Resolution passed by the members of the St. George Club on my last past birthday. Do me the kindness to assure those friends of mine that I am touched to the heart by their affectionate remembrance, and that I highly esteem it. To have established such relations with readers of my books is a great happiness to me, and one that I hope never to forfeit by being otherwise than manfully and truly in earnest in my vocation.