The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To JAMES BEAL,1 11 OCTOBER 1864

Text from facsimile in Forum Auctions online catalogue, Dec 2021. On mourning paper.2

Address: Mr James Beal | H.M.S. "Orlando"3 | Mediterranean Station. Mourning envelope.

GAD'S HILL PLACE
HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT
Tuesday Eleventh October 1864

    Mr Charles Dickens encloses Mr James Beal, his cheque upon his London bankers (payable to Mr James Beale's order)4 in discharge of the amount of the bill5 which Mr Beale cashed for his son, My Sydney Smith Dickens, now of H.M.S. "Pelican."6

• 1. James Beal (1842-93); entered the Navy in 1856, and served as Captain's Steward aboard the Orlando from March 1862 to June 1865.
• 2. CD's second son Walter, who served in the army in India, died in Calcutta on 31 Dec 1863.
• 3. H.M.S. Orlando, a screw steam frigate launched in 1858.
• 4. A cheque for £10, made out to Beal, was debited from CD's bank account on 9 Nov 1864 (Messrs Coutts & Co).
• 5. A legally-enforcable IOU, the loan to be repaid, with interest, at an agreed date. No doubt Sydney had raised the money to cover his debts.
• 6. Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (1847-72), CD's seventh child, nicknamed "Ocean Spectre". He entered the navy in Sept 1860, and served on the Orlando as a naval cadet and midshipman from Dec 1861 to May 1864; served on the Pelican from June 1864 to May 1866.