In a subsequent letter to the Directors (Cape Town, 17th March, 1852),
Livingstone finds it necessary to go into full details with regard to
his finances. Though he writes with perfect calmness, it is evident that
his exchequer was sadly embarrassed. In fact, he had already not only
spent all the salary (L100) of 1852, but fifty-seven pounds of 1853, and
the balance would be absorbed by expenses in Cape Town. He had been as
economical as possible; in personal expenditure most careful--he had
been a teetotaler for twenty years. He did not hesitate to express his
conviction that the salary was inadequate, and to urge the Directors to
defray the extra expenditure which was now inevitable; but with
characteristic generosity he urged Mr. Moffat's Claims much more warmly
than his own.
From expressions in Livingstone's letter to the Directors, it is
evident that he was fully aware of the risk he ran, in his new line of
work, of appearing to sink the missionary in the explorer. There is no
doubt that next to the charge of forgetting the claims of his family, to
which we have already adverted, this was the most plausible of the
objections taken to his subsequent career.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269