myself called upon to invite you to take up your residence in this country, where you may in peace continue your favourite and useful occupations.
Your position here will be a perfectly independent one; you will be bound by no conditions or engagements; and you will always be at liberty to steer home across the ocean in the event of your not preferring to cast anchor in our remote corner of the Baltic.
As regards your material welfare, I beg to assure you that everything will be done by me to make your new home comfortable and agreeable; whilst at the same time, the necessary means will be offered you to enable you to continue your scientific pursuits in the way you have been accustomed to.
I shall now be awaiting your reply, hoping to have the pleasure of seeing here so distinguished an officer, whose personal acquaintance it has always been my desire to make, and whom Russia will be proud to welcome on her soil.
Your sincere well-wisher,
Grand Admiral of Russia.
Maury replied to this invitation by pleading the call of duty, which weighed with him more than personal advantage.
| Admiral, | Richmond Va., October 29th, 1861. |
Your letter reached me only a few days ago; it filled me with emotion. In it I am offered the hospitalities of a great and powerful Empire, with the Grand Admiral of its fleets for patron and friend. Inducements are held out such as none but the most magnanimous of princes could offer, and such as nothing but a stern sense of duty may withstand.
A home in the bosom of my family on the banks of the Neva, where, in the midst of books and surrounded by friends, I am, without care for the morrow, to have the most princely means and facilities for prosecuting those studies, and continuing those philosophical labours in which I take most
