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8th November 1849
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear Captain Fitzjames
I write you now a few lines from Portsmouth to say how we have been getting on. All going as well as I could wish and we have been busily employed preparing ourselves to ship out to Cadiz. Ready for sea tomorrow.
Last Thursday we had the great pleasure — you must say I am being ironical indeed — of receiveing Royal Highnesses Prince Albert and Prince Waldemar of Prussia to inspect our humble little St. Vincent. We gave them a boisterous salute with our hundred and twenty guns and Howe Caledonia and Vengence followed us with their own trumpetting. I was obliged to show the princes into the fore cabin and the men all gave three cheers. A most imposing spectacle their royal highnesses agreed while I find myself weary of such triffles. Sir Charles Napier paid his respects and I was surprised at his good spirits for a man who had just been thrown over for the Mediterannean command. Your old captain Rear Admiral Hyde Parker joined us also who I did not know had commanded you on this very ship. I wonder how you took to him a rather small old owl he is now but perhaps more spry twenty years ago. I did not say to him that we were acquainted as I know my reputation for what it is.
Well James I would put the question to you but in truth I cannot be certain that I ought to have written you a line at all. In which case if after reading this letter you wish to hear no more from me let it be so. Writing this I feel much unease with our last parting being what it was however I know not what else I should do. For now I will say adieu and hope you are going on well at Brighton with Mr and Mrs Conningham and the little ones.
Your sincere friend
FRM Crozier
13th November 1849
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Captain Crozier,
Your note arrived on a particularly frigid morning, when I desired to see no one but my warming pan, so I was glad for it. In this town the sky is clear and fine, and the breeze fresh and bracing, but the cold is intolerable. I suppose there is no cure for it in the whole of chilly old England. Most days I believe that I shall never be warm — really, properly warm — again. Every day enlarges the gloom of all things to me.
I wish I could convey to you that I am well. In truth, I am not much altered from the foul humor that had settled upon me before you left. Dear William and Elizabeth are sweetness and benevolence themselves, but I fear I make a rather miserable houseguest. I remain up till late hours every night with creaky joints and violent attacks of headache; in the afternoons I must retire for a siesta lest I become irritable and melancholic. It will please you to hear, however, that my cane is no more. Dr Innes, having observed my three successive turns about the sitting room without it, told me yesterday that I may henceforth go for walks “unaccompanied.” I am almost mournful to stroll about without the faithful companion to which I have become accustomed. So, you see, this hulk shall be seaworthy soon enough!
A magnificent vessel is the St. Vincent; I recall we had over a thousand men on board. As for Parker, he was an odd-looking, taciturn fellow with a curious manner, and I assure you that if he remembers me at all it is as a young rascal. I was seventeen when they got me on her books — this being the posting in error I once mentioned to you — as a volunteer of the second class. Not a soul ever said a word to me; mostly I sat around with my hands in my pockets. I have just consulted my journal from those years (William has kept the lot): “If I once get rated as Mid in a sea-going ship I shall be the happiest fellow living as there is nothing I wish for more than to get out of this horrible class.” Had you known James Fitzjames at seventeen you would have laughed at him and then given him a thumping. No doubt Parker and the officers thought, quite rightly, that I was not half as clever as I liked to believe. Indeed I ought not to have stayed fate’s hand and mixed myself up with Barrow — look where it got me.
Evidently you expect no reply to your letter. To receive a line from you at all, however, was an arguable surprise after the words we had for each other. Today, as I got my paper and ink ready, I thought of how long it has been since I last beheld you, and how very strange that distance appears after the close quarters of our “adventure.”
Your time is not your own as captain of a warship, and as such I will not demand a reply. I am glad you have Mr Jopson aboard to see that you are taking meals and changing your shirt when you ought to. Pray remember me to him, and to yourself with a little kindness from time to time.
I am, &c.,
James Fitzjames
19th November 1849
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear Captain Fitzjames
We are soon to sail from here and much to be done but I could not allow the post to leave without sending you a line. I had hoped the comforts of hearth and home and the company of your dear brother and sister would be benneficial to you — I see they are yet you are ailing still which leaves me much disquieted. Let me be of service to you James however I may. Tho’ I am a poor correspondant indeed perhaps you will take some amusement from my diversions here.
I will tell you a little about how we are getting along so far. Our cruise has proceeded without much difficulties to Cadiz altho’ it is no small feat to command in smooth water. You will not laugh at me for saying so as others would as you know how my alarm bells like to ring. My daily life consists of nothing but reports and inspections a peculier dullness after our as you say “adventure.” In fact I am chiefly occupied by observations which I did not think I would miss after our frustrations on Beechey — do you recall the rows we would kick up over that Fox — still I am convinced that the Admiralty furnished us with a perfectly good instrument but we may debate the point upon our next meeting. Once we made Cadiz and concluded our observations off coast we were joined by a whole fleet — Queen, Vanguard, Cannopus, Rodney, Rattler, Euridisee (??), Pollyfemus (??? you will forgive the spellings of these blasted names) — to carry out sailing exercises from Sagres on the Sou’West tip to Lisbon. Next we shall be given a few days time of leave which I intend with God’s blessing to spend eating my fill of plums and pears and walking the city alone I pray no officer of mine dares request my company. Only Jopson I will tolerate and happily at that. How fortunate I have him here. Not only to keep me tidy but knowing that he is well and whole and safe brings me the sort of joyus feeling I did not know existed, the same with every man who returned with us and not least your self of course.
It is very kind that you write to me but I confess I have sat up most nights this voyage fretting that I have lost a brother. Tell me truly if you are angry with me which I suppose I deserve. Do not tax yourself in writing however I do not wish your head should ache.
At any rate believe me to be
your sincere friend
FRM Crozier
29th November 1849
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Captain Crozier,
I thank you for your earnest well wishes. In the two weeks since I dashed off my last letter I have seen some improvement — my attacks of headache no longer come on quite as ferociously, and my daily circuits around the chain pier are blessedly attenuated by a hot cup of tea after. It is my mind, however, that will not leave me be — I am seized with great fits of vexation whenever I am not out walking with William or playing with the children. Each one of us who returned from the North suffers the same lurid visions, no doubt, but I am the only man who cannot banish them with some sort of employment. Reading this, you will think I have absorbed a surfeit of your old doom and gloom. But here is proof: only yesterday I received a letter from the Admiralty’s Dr Thompson. (You will remember that I was pronounced “enfeebled” by his report.) The man has not even come down to Brighton to inspect me, and nevertheless he writes that my discharge cannot be repealed! I have not even reached forty years of age, and already I am useless. Even if I recover my faculties and fitness in due course, the Navy has washed its hands of me. “Seaworthy” though I may one day be, I am to them fit for nothing but scuttling. The whole damned Arctic Council — your dear friend Sir James excepted — would sooner see me disrated than permit me to set foot near Whitehall again. The clarity of their scheming is extraordinary. One must only look to that fateful meeting of the Council in January to discern the reason. Certainly all that has happened since is a poor augur of reform or indeed free discourse at all.
I feel keenly the ungraciousness of saying this to you, but in answer to your question — I am angry indeed, angry at the whole of England and its obsequious apparatus Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, which have colluded in bringing me so low. I had scarcely imagined any of this coming to pass when we had been saved and I at last allowed myself a bit of sanguinity.
I hope your leave is well spent with plums and pears and rambles in the sun. Do write to me again when you are able.
I am, &c.,
James Fitzjames
12th December 1849
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear captain Fitzjames
I cannot tell you it was a surprise to read your letter altho’ my spirits have not been high since. To tell you plain it is all a fact of my cowardice James I conceed it freely. I ought to have said my sorries to you more properly before I departed — I had fancied the mere sight of me had become displeasing but I left you when you most had need — for that the skys have darkened over me and give no sign of letting up soon.
But James I must have employment. I am peevish on land and prone to a melancholia that would no doubt dismay you terrible if you observed it. Since I was a boy I have known there is no service more congenial to my feeling than the Navy and indeed no diversion off ship that has been able to cure my humors. I fear I am no use to anyone when I am not aboard. What great losses we suffered in the North coming home leaving ninety two men behind cast such a blight I can hardly countenence therefore what else was I to do? I have no other trade no annuity nothing to give to my sisters besides this triffling pension which is fit only for a bachelor — I am alone besides a species of unhappiness that has lead me like a thirsty horse to the bottle in times past.
Probably you think it is an act of politicking — it is not that — I owe no feelty to the Admiralty or the Council. I am the commander of a calamity unlike any other in the Discovery Service and yet when I apply for a posting in the Med I am given charge of a warship. James I have sworn to you before and will do so again that I do not know why. I did not take this comission to seek glory or carry out their will. Merely it is due to all I have said here — I know nothing else but the sea and will endevour to live out my days in this life I have chose.
As for the meeting of the Council I failed you James I see that now. As your friend and brother I ought to have stood by you just as you have been my faithful Second at the end of the earth. I suppose I am an old dog too blunted and weary to bark at signs of trouble. I did not think they would see reason so did not take so much bother and tho’ they deserved every lashing you delivered it did come to naught in the end. That is the great indommitable machine of the Navy. I have been much concerned for your career also and how you may progress up through ranks even with your promotion to Captain being well earned tho’ less than you deserve — you are a Navy man since boyhood same as I and I have feared your making opponents of the Council prohibitive of any such advance or indeed getting a good posting at all — while I believe you are more suited to life as a landsman than my self with your enjoyment of fashions opera strolling about town &c. you are a bright shining star of the Navy and I do not like to see you dashed so soon. Nevertheless I can not help the pain I feel sometimes in thinking that it would have been better for you to never have known me so profuse are my failures.
I must hurry now to go up for noon inspections but I hope you will write me back with your thoughts on the matter I am eager to hear. I will not however entreat your forgiveness.
Always know that I am most sincerly
your friend
FRM Crozier
23rd December 1849
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Captain Crozier,
I am grateful for your concern regarding the progression of my career. But I have drawn the everlasting conclusion that any such advancement is of far less import than truth — hard, sharp truth, the sort that, like diamonds, may cut the wielder and the receiver alike. I have been naive, I suppose, in hoping that the union of Lord Fortune and Lady Virtue might thrive under the banner of the Royal Navy. As you say, the Navy will indeed happily crush you or I under the “wheels of progress.” God knows I had already been crushed badly enough by our ordeal, and still I prodded them — their prized pet no longer. I cannot say whether I truly believed my agitation would induce them to carry out any manner of reforms. But I know this for certain — John Barrow is the devil, and though he is dead (gone, I think, to a place all of us hope we shall never see) his shade lingers most balefully in Whitehall. They will not rest until the Passage is charted. Scores of men will be press ganged and carted off to die in those frozen wastes, and they care not a jot. Not that we ought to have dressed in furs rather than wool, not that our sledges would have travelled thrice as fast if harnessed to a pack of dogs, not that our tins were spoiled rotten on account of their parsimony. You know this as well as I, and yet your famed dissidence was nowhere to be found when I urged you to accompany me to the meeting. I should never wish unhappiness or poverty on you, and concede freely that I am fortunate indeed to subsist on my dear brother’s generosity, but I confess to some fair injury suffered from your absence. Still, I shall always be happy to hear from you; I wish badly, in fact, to hear from you and to learn how you are getting on, even as my heart aches to see your letters laid out for me on William’s table. It is a strange feeling indeed.
You have neglected to tell me of your time in Lisbon, and I would hear something of your leave if you are able. How is the weather? And your plums? Pyramus was stationed there for nearly a year when I was fourteen. You know I speak the tongue so it was no true hardship, though I recall writing to my aunt and uncle with the kind of impatient cries a boy of that age likes to utter. It was so exceedingly hot I could hardly sit up or sleep, but I saved all up all my réis to visit the market stalls every Sunday. I jabbered on with the sellers at the Praça da Figueira and the Ribeira Nova, each of us haggling rather zealously, until I had got my fruit for a penny off the asking price (naturally I marvelled at my cunning and finesse). Then I would wander around the Alfama ‘till I had found a wall I could scale, and atop it I would sit, looking out at the river, devouring my spoils like a proud little prince.
It was in Lisbon too that I first encountered our Terror, when she was wrecked along the Alentejo coastline in ’28. We were sent 'round to assist and got her upright so she could be sent back to Plymouth for repairs. Would that I had known then the grief we would endure under her banner! But perhaps her fate has always been inextricable with mine. Perhaps God propelled me along in service of that very moment when I applied my signature to the commission, and the sorry state I now find myself inhabiting is the one He has always intended for me.
Do take this letter as a paltry Christmas gift from myself — I hope you will get a good pudding from cook on the day. At least there is no chance of snow or ice.
‘Till then, believe me to be
Yours sincerely,
James Fitzjames
31st December 1849
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear Captain Fitzjames
Since our return I have spent many hours facing my foe the looking glass — not to inspect the pocks and folds which I know to be there as my vanity has no use for such an indulgence — but searching for a clue to tell me if I do remain the man I once was. I cannot spy any transmutation of the flesh so I fear that I have not changed at all merely given all my faults a new kind of character. I have been cowardly all my life in allowing melancholy and spite to rein over me. So perhaps now in lacking much of my former bitterness I have naught to drive me on no fire or spark to compel me to any useful purpose. Either way a perfectly hopeless specimen I am having allowed my shiftless instincts and I suppose what I thought best for you who deserves garlands and glories to trounce the demands of a man’s honour. I strive to be a worthy correspondant to you and the honesty you show me — you are noble indeed James I can not say how my admiration and esteem have bloomed — but I hope my scratchings do not have the sound of overexcusing.
All goes smoothly otherwise. We docked a full week in Lisbon for repairs and after discharging my duties to oversee each morning I enjoyed the finery of the scenery the banks of the Tagus the queen's gardens and the Rope Walk. The whole city is scarcely more than two miles breadth so a very good feeling arises to know you are ensconced safe in its borders. The fish markets here are groaning with wares — the sole excellent I will add — but I must say the oranges are delectable much better than the rubbish at Spitalfields. Near Belem there is an aviary containing a good many large birds whose plumage was a remarkable orange hue I have never lade eyes on before, great long creatures with wings twice their size which you as a great long creature yourself would be familiar. I am told that the air of this place is well known for its salutary influence on convalesents and I find myself wishing you here to enjoy it — the invigorating breezes and the absense of industry that clutters our native shores — even the sweet perfumes from the oranges and lemons and other such. I grow sad to think of you shivering with English cold while I revel in sunshine.
Well I shall bear it soon enough — we are obliged to see Portsmouth to join Napier’s squadron of exercise at the close of January — making Gibraltar tomorrow and then England within the week. The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty proceeding from London to asertain the efficiency of the squadron along with Prince Regent, Hellena, Frollic, Belerrophon (once more these blasted names), Pilot with our old Lt. Hodgson aboard so I am told.
Tomorrow a new year and while I think I have lived too many I can not rid my self of the fool hope that a better waits.
Your sincere friend
FRM Crozier
11th January 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Captain Crozier,
I write to you in the year eighteen hundred and fifty, with our century now halfway ended. Curious, is it not, that an arrangement of figures on a calendar can make one feel one’s age so acutely, conjuring spectres of all that has and will not come to pass. Never mind — I join you in hoping that this New Year may herald many happy new beginnings.
I was left with a certain gloomy sensation after finishing your letter. This is not a territory in which I wish to reside much longer, for the sum total of my grievances are beginning to tip the scales of our friendship. I do not like to feel myself slipping into the kind of petty crossness that might have infected the man I hoped to leave behind in the Arctic; neither do I like to read scores of pages of your flagellations, which serve no justice to your honour. Would it be a serious imposition if I came to Portsmouth? I should like for us to speak plainly to one another and see if we may clear up our difficulties. I do not ask in order to reproach you; it is only that I believe we recognise each other best when our souls are close enough to sing euphoniously in counterpoint.
If I do not have a line from you by the 20th I shall book passage on the West Coastway line.
I am, &c.,
James Fitzjames
25th January 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear James,
An efullgence of feeling has resided in my breast since you departed Portsmouth and I believe will not flee for some time. I cannot at all counts say how the sight of you has cheered me. I have been lonely you see even with Jopson to back-talk day and night — there is no one here who I can be frank with on the subject of the most heartfelt matters not a one such as you. It was very good to sit and talk with you in my cabin for nearly the whole day yesterday — probably the crew has wondered who there captain’s dear friend is as I have never chattered on with one of them at such length before (and do not intend to if I can help it). I do greive the loss of you aboard ship and find myself wishing I would spy you fiddling with the chessboard in my cabin whenever I enter. You see James how my sentimental proclivity comes out in matters concerning your self — tell me how I may conserve my reputation as fearsome old curmudgon.
Our talking having healed an ugly wound too it is more to me than simple friendliness. I was quailing looking ahead to many more letters between us with clear coolness even as we exchanged some nice words from time to time thus I am thankful to you for your forgiveness — which you dispensed as though it was a mere threepenny saying “It is nothing Francis” with that smile which crinkles your eyes you know which well I shall accept it greatfully as the prospect of going without is ni’ intolerable.
In these times I do wish the post moved a mite faster so you would arrive in Brighton to find this letter already waiting for you coming home to such a credit of your character. You had told me your westward journey was quick but I hope you have been comfortable on the return voyage and I hope too you have benefited from a short change in air.
If it is no inconvenence I will send you a line when we have made Gibraltar.
Your sincere friend
FRM Crozier
26th January 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Francis,
Your note arrived precisely as I came down for dinner after having rather sadly unpacked my carpet bag, and I thank you dearly for it. A wistful sort of sensation descended upon me on the train back to Brighton. It was not entirely a feeling born of envy — though I am desirous indeed of a tumbling ship, a fresh breeze, and a sea made of bright blue glass that curls beautifully around the stern — but rather of privation. (Indeed if I have licked my wounds overmuch in our correspondence, it is only because I have longed very badly for the sea while circumstances contrive to keep me detained here.) I was so very glad to see your face, hear your voice, sit with you in your cabin — all those small intimacies too easily forgotten — so that we might understand each other a little better. And indeed we have. After we had parted rather coldly before I had thought it would be no great thing to do without while you were posted elsewhere. Yet now, like a spark ignited, the fact of my missing you oppresses me as though I have suffered some awful misfortune.
However, I shall confine my letter to happy things and say that I much admired your figure (“fearsome” indeed) pacing about the quarterdeck during exercises. Having been on Erebus I had lacked much opportunity to observe you in command on open seas — which I now lament, for so impressive was the sight of you giving orders to land, attack, engage in sham battles, and so forth. I have scarcely ever seen our girl move with such grace, skimming about like a seabird with her glistening wings. As an old hand at the practice of gunnery I will tell you also that the firing was excellent and steady. Those gallant tars rattled with as much dexterity as ordinary troops of the line, the dismounting of the guns performed as delicately as a boy disassembling a toy horse and cart.
I feel I ought to give you something in return for the satisfaction you have accorded to me. Therefore I enclose a few sketches I have made of the squadron’s exercises and St. Vincent and — do not moan at me for doing it — yourself. They are silly scribbles and so I trust you will excuse any inaccuracies, but I found my hand quite compelled by the memory. (I think I have at last got that canny brow of yours right — it is not for want of trying!) When you have finished perusing you needn’t keep them, but I hope you will take some little enjoyment from my scrawls nonetheless. It warmed me to produce a few pieces of feeling drawn from such wonderfully remembered images.
Faithfully yours,
James Fitzjames
10th February 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear James
I write this to you in haste for we have only just arrived in Gibraltar having been becalmed for several days on the Spanish coast. Now we are docked in port for a week as we replenish our stores and I have added a fair few pets to my collection namely a hog and some fowls — next we sail the Coast of Rif cruising for pirates as there have been some disputes which the Navy has been called to settle. If any man on my ship aspires to carry out proceedings against those pirates it is not me I assure you — I hope we need not encounter any such quarrells that require a show of force which is not only a bother but loathsomely “hawkish” as the Americans call it.
The sketches you enclosed are very attractive works I think fit to hang in our National Gallery. You have pictured the ship and the exercises just so — there are no inaccuracies I can disern and each scene is rendered in good detail with a tasteful flair. As you expect however I do take umbrage with your portrait of my self. I do still possess a looking-glass you know James and that man is far handsomer than I. I defer to your artist eye in many cases but perhaps you have taken liberties to gratify an old man’s vanity.
When I was ashore to over see our stores being loaded etc I got to talking to a customs officer quite an amiable fellow about the vast rock that looms over this town. Taken together with the corasponding promontory on the opposite coast of Africa apparently the ancients called it the Pillars of Hercules, so they say Hercules seperated the two twin formations with his club. Well James I do hear some echo of that in your last letter — Hercules split a mountain to bring cattle in service of his famous Labours but it is much to the contrary with you and I — while I do cherish the rememberance of your visiting me aboard ship there is indeed a feeling that a lodestone has been split in twain.
I have got rather melancholy now but shall try to employ myself with observations inspections &c take my tea or coax Jopson to a round. I am teaching him chess you know and unsurprising he is a dab hand even hardly telling apart knight from rook — a shrewder chap I do not believe I have ever met in the service. It is a clear bright night tonight. I look through the great cabin window as I write to glimpse the moon shining in her glory and content myself with knowing you are seeing the same where you are.
Ever yours
FRM Crozier
1st March 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Francis,
How glad I am to hear that you are well-occupied and flitting about the Med like a regular cormorant. On the subject of the sketches, however, you are naturally incorrect. My memory is very fine and my drawings are rendered with express precision, so you must trust that the likenesses you see before you are unassailable in their fidelity. (I shall not say a word more as I know you will be horribly embarrassed by my “flattery.”)
We here at Sussex Square are well and mostly happy. My queer moods are beginning to recede; there is a quintessence of renewal in the coming of spring, I think, that speedily banishes all gloom. I have heard no word from Dr Thompson or anybody at all at the Admiralty about reversing my discharge (if ever I am permitted to reenter the service, I dare say it will be at a desk), but I find I am far less dispirited over the matter than I once was. Instead, I am eternally engaged in games of draughts and marbles with the children. They are delightful scoundrels, marvelously energetic, and do not allow me to claim exhaustion at any hour of the day. I am teaching them scraps of Portuguese as recompense — you ought to hear little Lizzie, only eight years of age, strutting around the house proclaiming in a most prideful tone, "Como é mau aquillo”! (How naughty that is.)
Since being defeated in our local election three years ago my brother has remained determined to stir himself into a fury at every opportunity; beware the wildest of tempests that rage when he chances upon some choice subject. Lately it has been the Royal Academy, of which he has been pronounced a “calumniator” by London’s Art Journal. The vituperation he has levelled against their numbers in the Times I shall not bore you by repeating, but in short: “So long as the Academy exists in its present form art must suffer under a degrading oppression.” Thankfully Elizabeth is of a softer temperament — much like my aunt in her intelligence and perspicacity, but a natural observer rather than actor. I am grateful indeed to have a sister of such graciousness.
And now that all my felicitous reportage has been tended to, I must tell you of a fearful incident which has just occurred. After dinner one evening last week we retired to the parlor for sport and singing, as we oft do, and Elizabeth inquired if I would recite an amusing bit of verse we had read in the paper that morning. I shall relay an extract for you here:
“O what a fine town is Brighton,
We all want sea-bathing at Brighton;
I vow now, Sir Doggy,
Your head is quite foggy,
You must take a journey to Brighton.”
The knight he looked glum,
And he mutter’d out “hum,”
To her, ay or no, it was quite one;
So she and Miss Dolly,
So funny, so jolly,
Set off with old Dory for Brighton.
“La, Pa, what a sweet place is Brighton!
I must get a husband at Brighton;
My pretty poke bonnet
Will breed a love sonnet,
And I shall get married at Brighton.
No sooner had I concluded my recitation than did William and Elizabeth — traitors both — turn to me with their cunning faces. “James,” said William with great relish, “we do believe you ought to find a bride. You hardly leave the house and surely would benefit from some charming female companionship.” I replied, “Perhaps you have not heard my famous witticism concerning wives and sweethearts,” and went upstairs to bed. I expect now that the first blow has been dealt they will not cease to batter at me on this point. I have always known I am not one suited for matrimony, and in spite of all of my most kindly feelings toward them I do wish they would leave me be — they have no hope of understanding my lonely predicament. (They do not know what I am, what I would speak, all I would do.) I wish, too, that you were here to quiet my brooding. Yours is the counsel and the succour I seek always.
I will close this line by saying — we have got our first signs of spring! In the garden behind the house a daffodil has begun to blossom. It is a most splendid garden, verdant and well-tended by Elizabeth, which perhaps you will inspect yourself one day.
Until then, I remain faithfully yours,
James Fitzjames
12th March 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear James
It is very good to hear of your spirits raised as I have worried after you for some time and I do not think unjustly. You have always had your family to look after you so I did not fear the worst such as it is but there is a way sorrow can seep into a mans bones doing much harm. I have always been the worse for being alone — therefore I must say the urgings of your brother and sister are not nonsense but in fact wisdom. Do not percieve me as your idol in these matters — the prospect of marriage need not alarm for it can be a joyful affair for many — nearly every one I know who has entered the covenent finds it pleasing — take James Ross and his lady wife Ann a clearer example of bliss you will never find. My dear James if you dismiss because you feel you have not the worth of a suiter I must interceed. You are very handsome and witty besides women like a fellow who draws out laughter with ease. But paramount you are brave kind honest loyal all the features of an ideal husband — you ought to have a wife who adores you for the uncommonly fine man you are. James your happiness is terribly dear to me perhaps the most dear thing of all so believe it to be true. Returned from Hell and Death itself I dare say we must try our hand at living.
A brief on how all goes here — brig has been captured by pirates off Cape Tres Forcas under our nose — I awoke some days ago to a noisy rattle and darting up to the deck saw a horde of boats pulling twelve oars each all staffed by men with long muskets. I ordered an advance but no sooner had I taken the spyglass to my eye than a volley of shot rang. Out of reach of their guns tho' nevertheless imperiling the ship. We gave up the chase and they rowed off with poor Three Sisters in tow. After my line to you is finished I shall have to write to some Admiralty Esq. about it — another foundering at the hands of Cpt Crozier but ah well — they are used to my insufficiences. In Tangier we stay for awile awaiting instruction. Now I bid goodnight as it is after one.
Ever yours
FRM Crozier
22nd March 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Francis,
My sympathies for the loss of the brig. I pray those poor fellows will come to no harm — I expect the Admiralty will dispatch Polyphemus to regain them as M’Cleverty has seen some fighting in Portugal under Napier. Nevertheless do not take it too heavily; you ought not to be upbraided for an unhappy stroke of fate.
On the subject of “unhappy strokes” — from my pen will flow an abundance as I offer a reply to your exhortations. You are very obliging to speak of me so favourably, but the truth is sadly swallowed therein. If I desire neither wife nor sweetheart it is not because I find myself unworthy of female companionship, feminine charm, the love of a good woman, &c. No, there is a person (I trust you will divine my meaning here) in whose hands my heart rests most steadfastly. It is a deplorable, bootless longing, but one to which I am devoted. I shall never court nor marry so long as my affections persist. Because you have long been a true friend and brother to me I see no justifying a falsehood; neither could I permit myself to lead you down a path of obscurity according to the natural specious instincts with which God has encumbered me.
Now I must call upon your discretion here and beg that we discharge this matter at once. It is really rather pitiful and ought not to be dissected at length. What lies under the skin of it is madness, nothing more.
I am, &c.,
James Fitzjames
30th March 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear James
I am sorry that I cannot obey but my mind has been all in a flurry since I read your note there is naught else I can think of tossing restless in my berth at night. I now feel I do not know you half as well as I had thought so I will plead with you to understand. For five years acqaintance I must surely be blind tho’ I cannot think of a person you have been disposed to speak of in that manner — never seeing or sensing the depth of your attachment or the tides of affection that run through you — I am stupid and slow to have missed. I cannot recall the name of a woman passing from your lips and tho’ the possibility of the inverse has at times occured to me I could not be sure. It is unfair of me James to ask yes but I would know his name at least.
FRM Crozier
7th April 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Francis,
You have asked, a thing I had hoped very badly you would not, and now I fear I have introduced a thorn into the rosy flesh of this correspondence that will induce you to turn away from me forever.
I am, &c.,
James Fitzjames
16th April 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
James you unsettle me with your hesitance a state which is so very unlike you that I am not able to think of what you may wish to conceal from me — your secrest are your own and I should not pry I know already I have insisted far beyond what I ought to yet I can only promise I shall never hate you for anything the very idea is unthinkable.
FRM Crozier
24th April 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dear Francis,
I can say only forgive me.
My heart has been riveted to you for so long I feel as though my affection were some endless, eternal thing — that it always has been and shall always be. I could not tear it from my breast even with the mightiest force.
I pray you will relieve me from a state of inexpressible anxiety by writing me a line back to say that you do not despise me. If you wish to conclude our correspondence, however, I will oblige, in which case I bid you farewell for today and tomorrow and all the days after.
2nd May 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dear James
No I ought to say “my dearest beloved James” for that is what you are to me. I know I am dreaming underwater transported high up in the clouds having reread your letter a dozen times but scarcely beleiving. Jopson asking why my hand shakes as I write in my logbook and pour tea, I have no answer only wonderment. My word James you have issued me a shock. A sudden agony clenching of the heart that left me convinced the thing had finally given out after all.
Long have I told myself Francis Crozier you are a hoary buck fitch who covets what you have no claim to but still my eyes could not ever stop looking. My eyes and my soul of course. For that is what you have transformed most of all in me. On our walk to the cairne — two years ago now but I close my eyes and I am there — I could not comprehend your offering — your own soul in my hands soft and fragile as a little bird. Laid out for me tho’ you could not be sure if I would crush or discard it. You had every reason to scorn me after my wrongs but yoked yourself to me instead. I had begun to care for you some time before but from that day knew how you have kindled such a pure love in me with your goodness.
More than ever I would like soon to find my way to see you — I do curse my duties and what has brought about my current employment for it means I cannot behold you this instant. For now I must put a stop here to call a meeting of the wardroom — I will write more once I have recovered. I hate to put you out of sight by putting down my pen tho’ you may I hope appear in my dreams instead.
I am yours most affectionately
FRM Crozier
12th May 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dearest Francis,
I write this from the garden, enclosed by a thicket of daisies and violets, under an oleander tree burning with blossoms, irradiated by luminous morning sunbeams, and I cannot recall if I have ever been so happy. My delight mingles with the harmony of the angels. All around there are green things growing fresh and new, animated by the same vital energy that burns through me.
Your letter is folded into a small square in my waistcoat pocket, and I do dread the prospect of changing it for a clean one. Every moment passing without that miraculous paper pressed against my breast will be anguish, as though someone has bid me renounce an essential part of myself, my own skin or bone, my own steadily beating organ.
Knowing you are just as stunned brings a smile to my lips. I was certain you were too clear-sighted not to have observed the profound impression which your own goodness made upon my heart — in fact I feared I had given myself away at every turn when we were together. Even now you hardly ever leave my thoughts; I exhaust my imagination day and night in thinking of what you are doing so far from me. When I receive a line from you recounting your little entertainments my mood becomes frivolous, and when you write to tell me of your misfortunes I cannot shake the brown study for a day or longer. At times I feel that if I have had a good night’s sleep it is only because you have also.
I am half-tempted, however, to ask why. I am much reduced in body; my muscles are wasted, and though my health has mostly recovered I imagine my fitness will always be a little feeble. You are the only real, truthful thing in a life composed of immeasurable inventions. I suppose this feeling of total happiness is so strange and novel — I have never had a lover, you see, merely relations too unsavoury to describe here — that it will be some time before I can assure myself of its fixity.
There are so many things I wish to write — to say — to you, yet I find myself similarly dizzied by all that has occurred. I kiss my hand now hoping the spirit of the gesture finds its way to you across the sea. If not, I shall keep it in amber until we next meet.
Ever yours,
J.F.
26th May 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
My dearest James,
I am never at the best of times a practical man always compelled by sentiment but you have stolen all sense from me — on the walk out I wanted badly to give you my own rations, all the rest of the mens too, a cache of provisions just for you alone to revive you — now when we are parted my mind drifts to you when I ought to be occupied with captainly duties on deck but I am posessed of fancies like a moony schoolboy. It is in my nature to be a fool in love and so I am.
If you have never had a lover then I have not either. No lover at least after whom I was not incessently grasping. Even when I had resigned ourselves to friendship only I did never doubt your affection for me, there is proof indeed in our correspondance of these six months. However the dreaming feeling still shrouds me because of this the preposterous notion that you would care for me as dearly as I do you and link your self to me, I had given up on hoping so long ago.
Yet you give a paltry representation of your self James that has naught in common with my view of you. You are devilish handsome even when unwell and conjure such impulses in me such as touching the softness of your hair or your strong proud jaw or other things that will not be confined to paper. I hope you will not think me too dissolute — well I think it of myself anyway the liberties my mind has taken — if I tell you how I long for your kiss, I would be more satisfied than anything even to recieve it from your hand. If I am good perhaps you will consider to give me one in time.
Now the lamentable news. We have just got instructions from the Admiralty which promise a half year at least more in the Med without real interruption. Our only recess is a week of leave in Valencia at the end of June when we are due to deliver some stores. It is terrible almost unendurable to know I cannot get to see you for so very long but I remain yours most affectionately
FRM Crozier
9th June 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
My dearest Francis,
Then I shall convey myself to Valencia forthwith. No doubt you will expel your usual grumbling as you read this — for my health must be carefully tended, &c. &c. — but I do feel well enough, I assure you, much better than I have in ages. I believe too that I shall be better still for having made the journey and seen you. I have written to an inn near the cathedral, the Fonda del Cid, expressing my desire to lodge for the week. On no account do I anticipate your company for very long, being engaged with as many functions as you are, but even those scant hours shall be manna to me.
Elizabeth has just chanced upon me writing this in my study and asked me what is the cause of the “radiant look upon your face.” I told her I was replying to your letter — a truth, of course, but not a whole one. I felt rather like a mischievous youth in my concealment. Of the many secrets I have carried with me, this is the only one that does not burden or harass; it is instead a kind of treasure I have hoarded away, a sacred token that suffuses my soul with much colour and light. May I tell you too how very badly you inflame me? I would know the particulars of your “impulses” and “liberties,” for I suspect they are the precise shape of mine. I do not wish to offend you by elucidating.
I think you had better not write me a line in return as I am due to depart in a week. The next words I hear from you will be aloud, from your own lips to my own ears — how peculiar after all the time and distance we have weathered. The notion appears to me much like a reverie, a fantastical vision, even as I begin to pack my trunk and finalize my arrangements. Friends and brothers we shall always be, yet when we meet in Valencia it will be as a different species of relation altogether. I confess I am nervous — not because I doubt your affection or intentions, but because this “brave new world” is unknown to me. Here I venture off the meagre map I have drawn heretofore in life. I am no explorer, not primed for uncharted lands as you are; therefore I suppose I am looking to you as my captain once again. Show me how I ought to be a sweetheart and I will apply myself as diligently as I am able. I only pray I will not disappoint you.
Yours faithfully,
J.F.
23rd June 1850
Plaza de Arzobispo, Valencia
Dearest James
Writing you a proper line will come later once you have left me but I can not watch you sleep without putting my prattle down. There is dusky pink dawn steeling in through the windows lighting you up finer than any marble I have seen in Florence. You tossed in your sleep — what were you thinking of, I would know your dreams as intimate as my own — and the sheet slipped to show your long pale neck — now I do fancy myself a poet James writing an ode to you — beauty such as I could never concieve. Indeed I did not think any body could stir me so vigorously when you bared your self to me that first night.
I pray you forgive the indecency only I burn so hot I scarce know what to do with my self. These few days have been happier than any I have known — climbing up to the cathedral tower holding your hand beneath our coats in the mist and fog — walking in the mercado with your arm in mine like friendly gentlemen do yet counting the minutes ’til we may have each other back at the inn — the base indulgence which you laughed at me for protesting, sharing oranges in bed sticky and delighted. I do despair to return to my post now. You know the life as well as I and we sailors are accusstomed to long solitude but I find my heart rebukes me for it. I had never thought not truly that I could stand my own company on land, however there is a certain freeness here. I am contented by idle things — reading the paper or buying cheese at the market — not waking dreding the black mood that may descend later and the general horrid feeling of uselessness. And there is the joy of you. You know my mind better than my self so it is nothing to sit and converse with you for hours (a misery with most others). You are never giddy or flighty but you have a lightness that inspires the same in me — I try to resist for fear of seeming brainless but I want to be light — all my years have been mostly otherwise and I am damned tired. You love me so easily James that I do think I may allow myself to hope — calling your self a “novice” in these matters so perhaps we travel this uncertain road as explorers together.
I will not for tediums sake but I should like to write to you everyday. Telling you all I have done today and expect for tomorrow as though you were there beside me occupying the pillow next to mine. Well I will not let you depart this morning without many kisses my only solace and there is the matter of my wishing to have you again. I will come find you when I am able but meanwhile I remain
Ever your devoted
FRM Crozier
26th June 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
Dearest Francis,
I write this in my greatcoat and boots, having left my trunk unpacked upon the threshold of my room and hurried to my desk — such is the urgency of committing my thoughts to paper.
I think I have got a cold from the return trip, for I am faintly weak and feel a cough tickling my lungs, but altogether not a bad jaunt. (Certainly we have endured longer and worse.) Though I last gazed upon you sixty-eight hours ago — trust that I intend to keep count precisely — I am beset by the sort of heavy ache that comes on after sixty-eight days. Or sixty-eight weeks, or sixty-eight months. There is no distinction between any of them, only the principle of “too long.” I understand the sublime song of the poets now — you will say I am jesting, having amassed an oeuvre of poetry myself, but they have been mere projections of feeling, sketches of the life I believed I ought to design — and I regret that I have only the strength for this half-sheet rather than a whole celestial quire.
I cannot very well linger in bed moping until your posting is finished, and so I will not. I intend to become exceedingly busy with my writing (I have thought to do a play or a novel) and sketching and calisthenics. As soon as I am assured this complaint is fleeting, I intend also to pay Teddy Charlewood and John Boyd up in London a visit apiece. Perhaps I shall even make a fuss with the Admiralty and embark upon a letter-writing campaign; I should enjoy pestering Barrow the Younger with daily objections to his Council’s governance.
But I do want for you. I love you from the deepest of my nature — and there's the rub. I am my true nature when I love you, never affixing inane, vulgar ornaments of speech or action to myself. I have settled into the conviction, possibly impolitic and unquestionably daft, that my only good in this world is to be yours, to spend my life with you. (I hope I have not made a presumption.) My anxieties over my career, the discharge, and so forth have all sprung from vanity. The man who clawed up the ladder to the post of Captain is not the man I strive to be, so why do I persist in latching it to my own worthiness? You wish for lightness, you see, while I for heaviness — for solidity, meaning, sincerity, certitude, profundity, all the rest. In this I believe we are a wholly harmonious pair.
I discovered the letter you had tucked into my trunk when I boarded the packet from Dieppe. Quelle surprise…! Though not an unwelcome one. To open it in mixed company was perhaps unwise as my cheeks flushed all scarlet, but I read with great attentiveness and enthusiasm, recalling at once the parting embrace you had given me the day before. (I feared I might miss my train so long did you clutch at me — and yet I would have accepted an eternity of kisses if your fate did not hang upon my leaving.) I shall not forgive the indecency you claim. That is because there is nothing to forgive, and I would hear more besides. It is an unseasonable evening in Brighton tonight, with a chill that creeps underfoot, and I am very cold and lonely in spite of my homilies herein. Tell me of how you were stirred, and I shall do the same in return.
Now my head gives a little warning; Morpheus beckons. I leave off here. Do not be too long.
I remain your own,
J.F.
6th July 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
Dearest
By my count it is 308 hours now. (I can not spell worth a damn but my calculus is without fault you will agree.) With each that passes I miss you more. I am very pleased you plan to undertake many exploits to keep your self occupied however I should never want you to loiter on account of me. I believe your imagination is well suited to a play or novel also as every line I recieve from you is more expressive and artful than Shakespeer (I have never read any of the man but I judge by his reputation). You are right I think that we see things under the same aspect. I shall always be a champion for your advancement James but nothing if it does not make you happy or satisfied. When I am finished here in some few years I will take my pension and give you whatever I have so that we may live in small comfort.
Here is your request. I say as though it is a grouling task for me to remember and recount. So very often — in my berth you know my meaning — I think of having to clap my hand over your mouth so noisily were you carrying on while I pawed at you. Then I am done for. I think too of other places I have put my hands on you. Your face was the first I could not help myself — desirous for so long of feeling how sharp your lines would be and the smoothness of your cheek. Your neck like a lovely swan’s and strong shoulders feeling your skin twitch under me. Then down in long strokes until at last your prick so hot and eager in my grasp showing its need with wet little spurts — bending my head to lick at it smiling at your shocked cry. Soon enough you came off in my mouth the taste like holy wine. Only three days of frigging and sucking but we did not seem to tire — growling when you left the bed for a glass of water so badly did I miss your warmth under me. Then you asked would I have you. You lay on your back — I would have done it any which way but I did cherish the sight of your dear face — a patient teacher as I almost spilled the whole bottle over the sheets and poked at you with clumsy fingers. You opened sweetly for me however and I believe I was as keenly effected as you when I had got three fingers in — inside you are so very slick soft and blood hot you would not believe it. I could see your prick begging me for more by its weeping on your belly. Poor thing I said to you with a smile but you could not reply only panting and moaning. Then my prick was in you and I very nearly came off instantly. You were thrashing around me so tight I could barely breathe only gunfire beating in my chest. I moved slowly at first wanting to comfort you (and save my self from early embarrasment) but suddenly your legs were a vize around my waist and you pleaded with me Harder Francis please for the love of God harder. So I went hard and fast filling you up in and out — the bed pitching like a roiling ship in a storm — I reckoned it might break but in truth did not care so long as we still had our peak to reach. Finally trembling biting my shoulder — I am still bruised and thank you for it pressing down with my thumb to remember when I have at my self — you shouted and fell back on to the pillows. I could feel your finishing from the inside like a bellows and it made me finish too even feeling a new stirring when I sat back beholding my spend trickling white and slow down your thigh. Afterwards holding you in my arms with your hair tickling my chest and your lips brushing my neck over and over. Heaven seemed to open before my eyes.
There I hope you are properly warmed through now. Promise me James you will not triffle with your health neglect or tire your self &c. Were I with you now I would forbid you from leaving your bed and gladly assume the post of your humble loyal servant — refreshing your bedclothes and bringing you tea — then tuck you up in your quilt and lay beside you stroking your brow until you slept soundly.
I have heard whispers of trouble in Burma and believe Fox has sailed to Calcutta to inquire into the situation. If we are conscripted into such a rigmarol I am of a fair mind to resign entirely. We are underway from Beyrout tomorrow to make Piraeus by Sunday where I will give you another line. Until then God make you as contented as I am through you.
I am ever and wholly your
FRM Crozier
13th July 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
Dearest Francis,
The scalding highs of this July day find me equally so. You have not merely warmed me through — I have had to claim illness and hurry back to my bedroom so I might comport myself appropriately while reading such a description. You have got me feeling very boyish indeed, inducing me to pull myself off at two o’clock in the afternoon while company is downstairs. (And yet there are such vivid traces of you in this letter that my affection is elicited just as strongly as my desire. I recognize your soft-hearted nature, the gentleness of your touch, even your sauciness which makes me want to cuff you at times.) Now that I have recovered from my crisis, which left me quite indisposed for an hour or so — regrettably I have not shaken this damned chill either — I shall fulfill my promise in return.
It is a wondrous thing, recapturing one’s appetite. We gorged ourselves on the joys of each other’s flesh for four days, hardly sleeping or eating for want of satiation, and yet I hunger still. Even to think of your devotion to my pleasure produces a trembling in my bones and a quivering of my nerves. Had I ever conceived of such transports? Stupid, but when I hold your last letter close I fancy I can smell you there, making me feel as though I am still breathing the sweet perfume of your arms around me. Thoughts of your caresses overwhelm. I think of you murmuring my name in that low and gruff tone, of your hot kisses pressed into my thighs, of you looking up at me so guilelessly as you slid your mouth around my prick, of my fingers tugging at your own prick as you sobbed high and pained, of your hard-driving hips bringing me to heights of ecstasy. And I am gluttonous — I would have more from you. I imagine your hands around my throat while you fuck me, leaving me dazed and gasping for air with a rag doll's helplessness. Myself an eager receptacle for your pleasure, you would be master to me, taking me wherever and whenever you wished — on the dining table, against the wall, out in the garden amongst the bees and sunflowers — with your fingers stuffed in my mouth to quiet me. How badly I long to feel the slow, voluptuous drip of your spend inside. My own fingers have not the breadth to satisfy, though I employ them nearly every evening hoping to quench my need. That is the sort of debauchery you beget.
I had kept a list of some amusing bagatelles to report to you since my last line, but now I find my mind all dried up, like charred wood after a conflagration. I send you a brief token of my gratitude before I dress and go down for dinner. Here, quickly: a kiss — you know very well the sort — then two for your cheeks, another for your brow, one for your nose, finally one for the soft place under your chin. Adieu.
Your own,
J.F.
25th July 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
Dearest
You talk of appetite and I hear your desires as clearly as if they sprang from my own mind so sharp is my need. I am unable even to relish the beauty of this port its clear green waters and fantastical sunsets knowing that your thoughts are a roaring echo of mine. (By the bye I should very much like to observe how you enjoy your own fingers.) In all my relations to date I do not believe I have ever really known my habits or indeed my self. I gave them what I thought they wanted which is to say a good fucking but never dared to dream of kisses or caresses or that this old sack would count for more than utility — so long I have spent in pursuit of desire never feeling the mirror of it. Always waiting for you James. You of course are my mirror in all things and looking at you gives me an especial honeyed feeling — not flattery which you know I find galling but attraction strong as the magnetic poles.
How many times and ways we brought each other off in that creaking inn bed yet I dream up so many things I want to do to you — more then ever I am grateful for a captain’s lonely bedplace so I may dull my aches in blessed privacy — the only consaquence is stained linens but I have picked up a trick or two from Jopson since Antarctica. There is in me also a surging want for such as I have never considered before or considered only at the very edge of sleep almost mouselike in hesitation — when next we meet I should perhaps like to give myself up to your prick a test if I have the constitution or indeed the taste for it — I must say your sounds gasping and crying while you took mine made a favourable impression I am curious to feel the pleasure of the stretch the slick heat the motion even the final emission &c. But only if you should like that James unsure what you have made routine with other relations it is merely that I seek to know you and have you know my self in all forms.
I do percieve in my recollections however that I have failed to catalogue you whole and therefore resolve I must put my mouth lips tongue on every inch of you. In particular where you are hottest and softest like rumpled velvet a resplendant flower. Tho’ I have not with any body I did imagine it when I had my fingers then prick inside you — puzzling how you would taste and if I could make you cry out and spend from kisses alone. Even fancying my tongue a prick of its own to slip into you and give you a lashing or if I had spilled already licking you all clean. Perhaps I would lie back on our bed a happy seat for your pleasure while you above hardly allowing me to breathe only to lap eagerley at you. I would not stop ‘til you had spent again teasing you slowly with small licks you begging me with my name even if it took hours. (You see how friends say Frank I had never much cared for Francis before until you named me.) Best of all however growing sleepy and resting my head on your shoulder with perfect contentment knowing there will be tomorrow and tomorrow and the rest.
In Piraeus we remain for God knows how long so I shall try to get some correspondance out to you as duty allows. In between not ceasing to think of you I will remain
Your devoted
FRM Crozier
3rd August 1850
26 Sussex Square, Kemptown, Brighton
Dearest Francis,
A short line today as I am laid up in bed. It is hateful that I do not possess at present the vigour to write more. Trust, however, that I have been powerfully affected by the contents of your last and would give you all that you desire.
During my indisposition, having dreadfully little else to amuse, I have got to thinking on some rather silly notions — mainly rooms in a Regent’s Park townhouse. Or a cottage in Sussex, or a seaside shack in Normandy, or even a blasted cabin in the American West. I do not care overmuch so long as you are there. As you have some time before you are released from your commission I will not press the point, but William has generously provided me with an annuity of some hundred pounds per annum for which I have no real use, and I am keen to give you as much of myself as you will permit. I have in my mind now a clear vision of the future, the first outline of a province on our new map. Recently I had, as you know, been hounded by no small worry over how I ought to act and be with you; having never had a tender companion of my own, I worried that I lacked some natural inclination toward attachment which the rest of mankind appears to delight in. But I see that I have always been arrested by my own fears and failings, a prisoner of the gilded cage I had built for myself.
I have been contemplating other ways that I may feel closer to you even when we are apart. There is a new novel called Shirley, by the author Currer Bell of Jane Eyre (which I do not believe you have read, but assuredly it is a triumph — a work of tremendous daring that gives one much to ponder), as regards which the Examiner has pronounced: "There are scenes which for power and delicacy of emotion are not transcended in the range of English fiction.” I wonder if we may read it concurrently and write to each other of our thoughts, so as to pretend that we are engaged tête-à-tête in our own dear drawing room salon. Tell me if you assent, and I will send you a copy.
I am terribly drowsy and must close my eyes, but I shall try to write more tomorrow or the next. Now, sleep, in whose realms I will meet you once more.
Your own,
J.F.
12th August 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
Dearest
By your next writing I hope you will be well and strong enough to go on your walks and play marbles with the children I do not like to think of your brave bold spirit confined to bed for so long. Let me do what I can to aid you also — if you are weary in bed perhaps you might not wish to read so much of my nattering on and therefore I will hold off.
I can not recall if you have seen Athens in your postings but I and two of the lieutenents were conveyed there yesterday for a tour and indeed what a spectacle — the Acropolis and temples and tombs, leafy vineyards and gardens of plenty — I declined to taste the wine but you would enjoy I think perfumed of fruit and cinnamin — offerings of figs like spoons of sugar in the mouth — my self lacking in the toutelage to appreciate much of the ruins but your fine classical education surely would. We traveled on horseback a feat which perhaps you will be shocked to hear of my proficiency. At Madeira with Ross we had a good go of it cruising across the island on horses I the fastest of the whole party. On two feet I am rather an oaf but I dare say as equestrian not shabby at all. Ross keeps a stable at Aston Abbots and no doubt would have us let a pair if you wished to ride.
I am not too literary and fear I could not send any good commentary — particularly against yours which I am sure reflect your learned powers — but I would like to read what you bid me and learn all I can — I will try to think very hard while I do and furnish you with an interesting note or two — in any case it will be pleasing to know your eyes are glancing across the same pages as mine absorbing the same words our minds joining as one. So I will promise to use my leisure time in reading as soon as I recieve a copy (easy as we are still anchored here and without much to busy us). For now I kiss and bless you as
Your devoted
FRM Crozier
1st September 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
Dearest
I have not had a letter from you since a month ago nor recieved any such book with the post and I write to see how you are getting on. If you are very ill I should like to know so I may send you my prayers tho’ it will not stop me from fretting in fact worsen my worries — I am being careful to not load you up with letters even as the pen tempts me every day to take down my sentiments which primarily are thinking of you wishing I could hear you laugh at a yarn or drown my self in your smell or fuck you or hold you against me as we slept. Goodbye my dearest and tell me good news of your self if you can.
Your devoted
FRM Crozier
9th September 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
Dearest
I am of a mind to write your brother inquiring of your health. I can not be sure if the post has been lost or you are poorly or simply have got tired of me. Just a word to say how you are I ask for no more than a word lest the writing should be hurtful to you.
Your devoted
FRM Crozier
15th September 1850
H.M.S. St. Vincent
James my dearest I write this unsure if your brother and sister are administering your correspondance while you are abed in which case there is the danger of their reading my lines but I am out of worries at present in fact frantic with nerves. When I opened Mr Coninghams letter describing your perilous state of pneumonia my heart had a swift painful fright like it had stopped for good — only manageing to start again at the idea of needing to see you instantly and ensure you are well — I have written to Berkeley informing of my resignation of this command and recommending Edward Little (from what I hear at odds and ends residing with his sister in Devonport) for the posting I do believe the Board will not provoke so much a frenzy if they can get a solid dependeble fellow like Edward for their bidding straightaway. I have said I must attend to urgent family business and that is the truth of it for you are — my life is bound up with yours my heart belonging to you forever my own other half. Anyway have got passage on Albion sailing back out to Portsmouth tomorrow so I have said to Mr Coningham that I will reach England by the 21st September and then only a few hours to Brighton and I must see you at once. I am convinced your enormous strength of mind body and spirit will repair you but can not be certain and therefore will not rest until I have touched you with my own hands. What comes after I do not know but my thoughts are reserved for none but your health and happiness all the rest be damned.
Your devoted
FRM Crozier
28th March 1851
12 Saddler St., Ludlow, Shropshire
My best, dearest F.,
You have gone to the market to procure eggs and cheese (you assured me of no greater delay than three quarters of an hour, but I suspect you will pause for chit-chat with Mrs Martins; you know she has rather taken a shine to you, my dear, prickly old bear that you are), and I am besieged by the itch to write to you. After so many months conversing solely through our dispatches, it is strange to think that I have not put a new pen into the porcupine since before I took ill, and stranger too to find myself missing the secret thrill of it. What secrets and sorrows I wrote to you I do not believe I would have ever dared to speak aloud, even as I sought to dissemble so as to preserve the fragile fondness of our letters. You were my confidant, but also my undoer; I longed for you even as I feared what I might do if I had you. When you pressed me for the name of my “paramour” I could have prevaricated, anticipating your disgust (I am very well-practiced in that sort of unscrupulous self-preservation, after all); I had no hope of you returning my affections, and I knew myself a right Jack Adams for even venturing to put it to paper.
Yet that letter — crying out to you across a distance of so many miles — was my divine intercessor. Without our estrangement there would be no soul-full revelations, no sighs of relief, no awe that two beings were capable of such closeness. By the time you burst through the door into my sick room and knelt by my bed, I had begun to think you were some paragon of imagination, brought on by delirium and an excess of loneliness. Then you seized my cold, damp hand and kissed it, and the spell melted away. You were there before me, real indeed with your wet eyes and sturdy warmth. You bent your head and murmured that I must not leave your sight ever again, and though you could not see my face I will tell you now that I was smiling for the first time in many weeks. I felt as though my illness had abated instantly, that I had quite enough vim to leap from the bed, take you in my arms, and dance a polka. It was only days later, when I chanced upon several unopened letters that Elizabeth had left in my room, that I comprehended the terror of what you had endured. In ceasing to write to you on account of my condition I had made myself as good as dead; you could not access any part of me, ink or flesh, uncertain if I had really expired or merely thrown you over. I therefore resolved to forestall any such misfortunes from reoccurring. Once I had recovered and you, still obliged to sleep in the narrow bed in my brother’s guest room each night, inquired with charming shyness if we might take our leave from Brighton soon, I smiled again to know that we were of the same mind — the fancies we had expressed in our letters were true, honest business. Thus began another chapter in the book of our association. The prologue I found a tricky knot to unwind, and the middle parts rather touching if histrionic, all racing toward a suitably dramatic finale. Now we are at leisure to settle into a quiet and gentle coda.
Is it not astonishing that my love should continue to expand the more I see of you and hear of you? I had adored you so fiercely already (too fiercely, I had thought, for the borders of my unexplored heart) that I could not apprehend the possibility of a greater sensation. Yet today, having lived by your side for the better part of six months, I realise that my affections had multiplied upon meeting your little domestic peculiarities — your untidy hair in the mornings, your dislike of mushrooms and preference for blancmange, your loud rattling when you read the Times, your penchant for dozing in the armchair as soon as the clock chimes eight.
You appear in all things to me. My gaze alights upon the flowers on our table, and there I see you out for your walk, stopping to collect a posy of daisies even as the sky unbolted and began to pelt you with rain; you were hardly bothered, only fixed upon the immovable point of bringing them home. In the stove I see your sorry attempt at venison pie, the billowing smoke, that darling moue of displeasure you wore. In the pocket-book on the credenza I see the shillings you send each month, as much as your pension will permit, to Mr Hartnell and Mr Manson and the rest of the boys. In this quill is your sweetness in writing to me even after I had slighted you. In this ink, however, is my own life-blood — I do not believe any other force could have sustained me while our halves were severed.
Here I sense a note of melodrama beginning to perfume the air (you will raise that rogue's brow at me if I give you another speech about your loveliness), thus here I conclude my letter. I shall seal it up and leave it on your writing desk amongst that muddle of papers. You may not spy it for some time, perhaps several days, even a week, but I should like you to have a pretty little surprise one afternoon, and I see no hurry. There is time enough.
J.C.F.