Letter from Henry Willingham Gell to his brother about Lady Franklin (front and back pages)

28 Oct 1873 My dear Philip I have been most frightfully and horridly sold. The following are the circumstances. Grandmamma came here on Saturday in a very bad way. For it turned out that Sir Robert McClure is just dead, & that Sherard Osborn thereupon wrote to the Times an account of his life saying that he was the discoverer of the N.W. Passage & the Times further took up this view in its account of him. At this Grandmamma was greatly indignant, & on Sunday she told me the whole story, weeping away like any fountain, telling me that I ought to write & that you ought to write & everybody else ought to write to the Times to correct them. I of course modestly declined, & told her I thought it would be no good, & that if she wrote herself it would be as much as the times would do to put that in. However, when I came home on Monday, I was immediately presented with a piece of paper on which she had composed a letter that I was to write. I had nothing for it but to write the letter, satisfying myself that the Times would never think of putting it in. My letter & hers were taken off by Lawrence the same evening to the Office, & I thought no more about it. What was my disgust, when on opening the Times when I came home this afternoon the first thing I saw was my name in large print. I never seemed such a fool in my life before, & even now I can’t get over it. I don’t know what the Father will say. I spex he’ll laugh. Just a few. Grandmamma wants me to send you the inclosed for what reason I don’t know. I suppose because it was a speech made at Oxford. I send you a list of the books. With best love from your affectionate brother Henry W. Gell I shan’t give way to people’s whims so easily another time