Details
SIR HENRY MORTON STANLEY (1841-1904)
Autograph letter signed to Agnes Livingstone Bruce, daughter of David Livingstone, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nov 25th 1878. 3 pages, 8vo, with autograph envelope addressed to 'Mrs. Agnes Livingstone Bruce care of Mr A. Bruce 53. Grey St Edinburgh N.B.', redirected in another hand. The letter acknowleding her gift of 'Dr Livingstone's sextant which you have generously given me as a valued souvenir of your father. There is scarcely anything that I could have appreciated so much as the instrument with which he located his positions [during] the last few years of his life with so much zeal in [sic.] behalf of Geography, Africa and ther [sic] future possible development of England & the Commercial nations of Europe & America. Accept my very best thanks for this precious gift which I shall only be too glad to preserve as a memento of the dear old man who showed me by the constant practice of noble virtues how much Goodness, one of God's men contained within his breast'. Stanley met Livingstone on the 10 November 1871 at Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika (Lake Malawi). After unsuccessfully attempting to persuade him to return to Britain, Stanley reluctantly left for Zanzibar on 14th March 1872. He was to be the last European to see him alive. Livingstone died during the night of the 30th April 1873. His belongings (including presumably his sextant) were packed into tin boxes, and they and his body returned to Britain on board the Malva, arriving on the 15 April 1874. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 18 April 1874. The sextant is now in the collection of the Royal Geographical Society (see David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, N.P.G., 1996. p.75 [full-page illustration]).
Autograph letter signed to Agnes Livingstone Bruce, daughter of David Livingstone, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nov 25th 1878. 3 pages, 8vo, with autograph envelope addressed to 'Mrs. Agnes Livingstone Bruce care of Mr A. Bruce 53. Grey St Edinburgh N.B.', redirected in another hand. The letter acknowleding her gift of 'Dr Livingstone's sextant which you have generously given me as a valued souvenir of your father. There is scarcely anything that I could have appreciated so much as the instrument with which he located his positions [during] the last few years of his life with so much zeal in [sic.] behalf of Geography, Africa and ther [sic] future possible development of England & the Commercial nations of Europe & America. Accept my very best thanks for this precious gift which I shall only be too glad to preserve as a memento of the dear old man who showed me by the constant practice of noble virtues how much Goodness, one of God's men contained within his breast'. Stanley met Livingstone on the 10 November 1871 at Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika (Lake Malawi). After unsuccessfully attempting to persuade him to return to Britain, Stanley reluctantly left for Zanzibar on 14th March 1872. He was to be the last European to see him alive. Livingstone died during the night of the 30th April 1873. His belongings (including presumably his sextant) were packed into tin boxes, and they and his body returned to Britain on board the Malva, arriving on the 15 April 1874. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 18 April 1874. The sextant is now in the collection of the Royal Geographical Society (see David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, N.P.G., 1996. p.75 [full-page illustration]).