To a friend
about to proceed to Gosport, Mr. Murray wrote: "Poor John has met with a
sad accident, which you will be too soon acquainted with when you reach
Gosport. His mother is yet ignorant of it, and I dare not tell her."
Eventually the boy was brought to London for the purpose of ascertaining
whether something might be done by an oculist for the restoration of his
sight. But the cornea had been too deeply wounded; the fluid of the eye
had escaped; nothing could be done for his relief, and he remained blind
in that eye to the end of his life. [Footnote: Long afterwards Chantrey
the sculptor, who had suffered a similar misfortune, exclaimed, "What!
are you too a brother Cyclops?" but, as the narrator of the story used
to add, Mr. Murray could see better with one eye than most people with
two.] His father withdrew him from Dr. Burney's school, and sent him in
July 1793 to the Rev. Dr. Roberts, at Loughborough House, Kennington. In
committing him to the schoolmaster's charge, Mr. Murray sent the
following introduction:
"Agreeable to my promise, I commit to you the charge of my son, and, as
I mentioned to you in person, I agree to the terms of fifty guineas.
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