My dear Sir

Since seeing the arrival of your ships after your glorious expedition,¹ I have been wishing to write to congratulate you on your safe return, but I did not know where your ships were, & only thought yesterday of directing to the Admiralty & letting my note take its chance. I hope you received my letter sent to Rio de Janeiro to thank you for having so kindly remembered me & my wish to see specimens from all outlandish parts of the world. I was much gratified in carefully looking over your specimens & should be very glad of a few fragments, as tokens of the southern lands, but I do not make any regular collection & have presented a large part & intend to present that which is worth anything of the remainder to public collections—² Your Box is at my Brothers lodgings 43 G^t. Marlborough S^t. if you will inform me I will direct it to be sent anywhere in London or elsewhere, or you could call there & arrange to separate them— I should like to have the pleasure of thanking you in person, but I now reside in the country & being I am sorry to say quite a different person in strength to what I was on board the good old Beagle,—I find even a little trip of 20 miles very fatiguing— You have indeed had a glorious voyage.— I never read anything more awful than some of your escapes and Dangers, of which there was an account the other day in the Literary Gazette—³ Our old shipmates are squandered in the four quarters of the world— Usborne is gone with FitzRoy to New Zealand—⁴ Wickham & Philip King married in Australia.—⁵ I suppose we shall have the old Beagle at home again before long.—⁶ I should like once again to step on her decks.

Pray remember me most kindly to Hooker⁷ whose letters have been interesting all naturalists, and believe me— My dear Sir | With renewed thanks. | Yours very truly, | C. Darwin—

I hope you will write to me about your Specimens—