Hearing of this application, Judge John Taloe Lomax, a distinguished ornament of the bench in Virginia, and a warm personal friend of Lieutenant Maury's, addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, remonstrating in strong terms against the propriety of yielding to Lieutenant Maury's application, and enclosing a certificate from the three best physicians of the town, Drs. Wellford, Carmichael, and Brown, who had been attending him since his injury, which testified to his incapacity to stand the exposure and hard-ships of sea-life at that time. In consequence of these letters the Secretary declined to order Lieutenant Maury to sea duty.
He speaks of this in the following letter to Rutson Maury:—
| Fredericksburg, Nov. 13th, 1841. |
. . . .There is no move as yet seaward. The physicians in town have made quite a man of importance of me. They, I understand, united in a sort of remonstrance against my going to sea, setting forth to the Secretary the unseaworthiness of the leg. As this was done without my knowledge or consent, I do not know what action the Secretary will take upon it.
| Yours, |
| Mat. |
