by Diane Fontaine Maury-Corbin

“ So, Dick, I beg that you will not suffer yourself to have any unpleasant feelings about the matter; for I feel that security in your friendship and affection which I have ever felt, which grew up with us from our childhood, and which has been and is a source of unutterable gratification to me. You know that of all of our brothers, we two were more as one in feeling and in disposition; even our boyish fights never interrupted the tide of affection between us. ”

“ Sometimes I think, when I become desperate, that I’ll write. Sometimes I have a notion to take to books and be learned; but then such vast fields and pastures and wastes and seas of unexplored knowledge appear on the horizon, my ignorance sickens at the prospect. ”

“ Shall they be light or heat? — storms or currents? — ship building or ship sailing? — steam or trajectiles? — hollow shot or gravitation? — gases or fluids? — winds or tides? — or.. and in the wilderness of subjects, the mind is confused, and knows not which to choose; so I play with the children and bend the knee, which, though now more readily bent, does not admit of but very little more flexion than it did when I saw you. ”

“ After being engaged on surveying work for more than a year, Maury obtained a few weeks leave to visit his parents in Tennessee, and attend to some business matters for his father, who was now old and infirm. He also wished to make arrangements for bringing his parents into Virginia to live with him. On his way back to New York he was thrown from the top of a stagecoach, he having given his seat inside to a poor woman who could not stand the exposure of the cold night air. Maury’s leg was broken at the knee. ”

“ There is another thing, Dick, persons professing to be Christians are very apt to make the conduct of their brother professors around them a standard for their own conduct towards God. This may, without knowing it, and unless one keep a watchful eye upon his own heart, tend, more or less, to lead us to regard unduly the opinions of the world, and prompt us to do what an untrammeled conscience would condemn. Learn your duties, Dick, from the Bible. ”

“ In 1831 Matthew Fontaine Maury was appointed master of the sloop-of-war Falmouth, which had been ordered to the Pacific Station. Years later, Maury used to warn his children against any injustice to their companions in thought or deed, by telling them the story of “Johns”, a young midshipman who was on the Falmouth when Maury joined her for her four years cruise. Young “Johns”, when going ashore at Norfolk, had been entrusted by a comrade, whom we will call “Brown”, with a case containing two bottles of very precious attar of roses for his sisters. ”

“ To his parents he writes:
The boy Richard Launcelot (Maury) grows apace. He is a fine little fellow, and I think he is the pet with both his aunts.
Little Betty has just skipped in, and says, “Tell ganpa to come and see us, and the son too, and that’s all.” She can read understandingly, and is quite proud of it. Little Nannie (Diana) is only in her “A, B, C’s” as yet, under little Betty’s tuition. She has a good memory, and can repeat several hymns and verses, standing on the table and accompanying herself with appropriate gestures. ”

“ I am, and have been for the last year, doing the duties and receiving the pay of a lieutenant. I am sorry to hear you have had such ill luck with your crops. I hope you will make up this year for all lost time, and be able to place yourself square in the world. But can’t you farmers make more than three hundred dollars a year? ”

“ The ship was paid off at Boston, and the young officer returned to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and married his cousin, Miss Ann Hull Herndon, to whom he had been engaged for several years.
Maury's fee to the clergyman who married them, the Reverend Dr. Maguire, was the last ten dollars he possessed in the world. Not long after his marriage he went on to Philadelphia to make arrangements with Mr. Biddle, a prominent publisher of that place, to bring out his "first born," as he used to call it — his work on navigation. ”

“ In the meantime, my appointment in the navy came. I went home, and the first intelligence my parents had of my intentions was this letter of appointment. It disturbed the family very much, and my father expressed his disapprobation of my conduct in strong terms. As I had proceeded without consulting him, he determined to leave me to my own resources. I was resolute. I bought a horse, and got the man to trust me until I could remit him the money after selling the horse in Virginia. ”

“ Johns awoke in due time and took the case, which he had never opened, to the sisters of Brown, afterwards joining the Falmouth for her cruise in the Pacific. The sisters, as soon as they found the bottles were filled with water, wrote to their brother to complain of the dishonesty of Johns, “who must,” said they, “have stolen and sold the attar.” Their brother immediately agreed with their conclusion, and, after telling the story to the whole mess, demanded that Johns should be treated as a thief and “sent to coventry,” being no fit associate for young gentlemen. ”

“ I hop out on the porch every day to take an airing and to inure myself to the weather. We have a fine snow for sleighing. I hope it will hold; travelling will be much more easy and much less fatiguing. ”

“ My mother, who is quite as untravelled as Aunt Herndon was, thinks she could perform the trip from here to Fredericksburg on horseback! My father’s voice, which was always very powerful, is as strong now as it ever was; he frequently exercises it in calling to his hands while at work at the top of its hail ”

“ It was favorably noticed by the highest nautical authorities in England, and it BECAME THE TEXTBOOK OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY overshadowing "Bowditch" and only ROTE memorization of his Practical Navigation, a complex work with errors, the Navy's "Bible" -- but without any understanding, of sections as the requirement of the U. S. Navy -- useless foolishness on the part of the navy for any true navigator whose life was at great risks while far out to sea in what is termed "Blue Water".
At about this time Maury's eldest child, Elizabeth Herndon Maury, was born. ”