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1 Aug 55 Julius Main Guard House, Valletta Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

The Main Guard House, Valletta

Malta

August 1st /1855

Dear Mother

I received another letter from you this morning; & I have to send many thanks in return for your congratulations on my Lieutcy.

One of our Ofcrs. called Leeson was sent on to the Crimea. He started about a week after we did from England in a steamer, passed Malta a week before we got here, & is now in the Crimea which does not particularly please us as he is some way junior to us here.

I find that in my tent I have everything for winter & nothing for summer so I have been making various purchases of flannel trousers, ditto jackets, straw hats & white canvas boots. I hope I shall not stop long here; it is so hot. There is never any rain in the summer. July & August, they say, are the hottest months.

A draft of our detachment here is under orders for the Crimea. 1 Capt. & 7 Subs so there will be 1 Capt. & 2 Subs left here. As I am last but one, I stop behind & take charge of a Company which brings me in 1s:6d a day extra.

I am at present Supernumerary Ofcr. on guard. I have to stop in the Ofcrs. Guard Room all today & all the night till 8 in the morng.

We had parade this morning at ½ past 4, marched 3 miles away from Btn. Stopped there about 2½ hours drilling & marched back again under a broiling sun. It was so hot even at that time in the morning that a number of men fainted.

I hope Arthur will enjoy himself at Sandhurst when he goes there. When is he to go up for Examination. If he would make himself out to be 1 or 2 years older, he would get on amazingly. As they are not particular now, they might give him a Commission his third half. At least I know an instance of it.

I have not yet been over St John’s Cathedral but I go tomorrow. Valetta has some fine buildings in it, but it is a dirty place, & the inhabitants are great beasts. Most of them sleep in the streets all night rolled up in an old sack or something of the sort.

We had a good supply of Ensigns the other day, had we not.

All the hands of the ship that we came out in mutinied when we disembarked & so she cannot go out to Bombay just yet.

What is the news from the East (i.e. from John & Peter). Please send me the Gazettes

with love to all

from yr. affect. Son

Julius, Dyson, Laurie

Lieut. 34th Foot

PS I have met lots of old friends here. One that was at Flanwell with me, 3 that were at Sandhurst & 1 (Sotherby of the Rifles) that was at Staines. I did not get Mary’s* letter this morning when the mail came in.

JDL

* Mary – Mary Riley, his older half-sister, the daughter of John Laurie’s first wife (also Mary), who died shortly after the birth