Item 46 - James David Forbes to William Whewell

3 pp

Edinburgh - Thanks WW for his letter: 'I feel the position in which you are placed and perhaps you had over rated what I could reasonably have expected or asked you to do' [re: a Royal pension?]. JDF hopes that by the time the cabinet ministers have his application they will be familiar with his name: - 'be predisposed to consider it favourably by knowing that persons in whose judgment they are likely to confide in questions touching scientific merit, entertain a favourable opinion of the qualifications of any person who is proposed to receive a public mark of distinction'. If WW gets a chance of saying so much to Henry Goulburn - referring to JDF's application made via Lord Aberdeen - 'it is as much as I can expect'.