The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To CAPTAIN HENRY CHADS,1 31 AUGUST 1858

Text from facsimile in Scott J. Winslow, New Hampshire, catalogue 18 Aug 2006.

Imperial Hotel, Cork2

Tuesday Thirty First August | 1858.

Mr. Charles Dickens presents his compliments to Captain Chads, and is very cordially obliged by his kind letter. It would have afforded Mr. Dickens the greatest pleasure and interest, if he could possibly have accepted the courteous invitation3 of Captain Chads. But unfortunately his time is so fully occupied, that he has only one poor quarter of an hour for Queenstown.4

• 1. Henry Chads (1819-1906; Dictionary of National Biography), captain, 1848, son of Sir Henry Ducie Chads. Sir Henry, a Rear-Admiral, was commander-in-chief at Cork, 1856-8, and his son was Flag-Captain to his father at Queenstown.
• 2. CD arrived in Cork, 30 Aug, from Belfast and gave three Readings there; he was in Limerick, 1 Sep.
• 3. CD consistently refused all offers of hospitality during the Readings.
• 4. Now Cobh, some 12 miles by road south-east of Cork.