Dear Darwin

Many thanks for your letter which strangely fell in with my thoughts at the moment of receiving it.¹ I was just contemplating the possibility of getting a foreigner elected here to the Botany post. I am an elector so you must treat anything I saw as confidential. I should like extremely to see such a man as you mention here but firstly would he come for £500?² secondly would the University contemplate the arrival of a foreigner with content, thirdly could the President of Magdalen the Pres of the College of Physicians your Botany Professor at Cambridge & the Bishop of Winchester and Sir John Lubbock be induced to vote for such a man?³ The matter lies with them primarily.

I am very much annoyed because Dyer apparently intends to use Kew influence to run old Williamson who would put a final end to the subject if he came here.⁴

I will speak to some of the authorities here and write to you again. I do not expect the vacancy to be filled till March at least.⁵

Yours truly | H N Moseley

Please give my best compliments to M^rs Darwin.