On Monday evening, March 19, I received from the
British North Borneo Company the following welcome
le tte r :—
11, Old Broad Street, B.C.,
March 19th, 1883.
M y d e a r H a t t o n ,—The • following extract from one of onr
despatches will interest you in case you have no letters by this
mail:—
“Mr. Pryer has received a note from Mr. Hatton, dated 25th
January, from near Penangah. He was in good health, and about
to descend the Segama River.”
After this, I believe he is, going into Silam, where there are four
Europeans, and from which place he can return to civilization by.
Cowies’ steamer.
Yours truly,
¥ m. M . C r o c k e r .
Five days later, on Thursday the 22nd, Mr. Crocker
brought me (and I have often felt sorry for him when
thinking of the painful character of his mission) the
following telegram from Sir Walter Medhurst, at
Shanghai, to the British North Borneo Company in
London:—
Bad D ew s from Borneo—Baquette shot himself—accident—Yon
Donop and Callaghan ill at Elopura.
There was one hope for us—the selfish hope that
the code-word was a mistake. Our kindly messenger
of sorrow gave us this hope to break our fall upon.
“ Baquette ” was the code-word for Frank H a tto n ;
but there was the code-word “ Banquette,” which
stood for another officer of the Company. I t was hard
to wish that death had taken some other, and not our
dear one. We tried to cherish th a t forlorn hope,
nevertheless. But in his mother’s heart all hope died
out with the very first suggestion of trouble. The
next day was- Good Friday. The Company had telegraphed
to Shanghai for details. But we could get
no reply until Saturday. From Thursday night until
•Saturday morning we lived through the suspense.,
Thank God he knew nothing of , our anguish. We
beguiled some of the time on Friday sending a special
messenger into the country to ask some unnecessary
question about the telegram. The local churches
tolled their sad bells for a death that occurred eighteen
hundred years ago. The next morning London awoke
as usual to its daily miseries and joys; and in a sort of
dull dream I travelled to the city, over the ground
which he and I had often traversed together, and
entered the offices where I had often had news of him.
Sympathetic hands laid before me the second telegram
from Sir Walter Medhurst:—
I t was Hatton—he was elephant shooting—his rifle caught in the
bushes and exploded—he was shot through the lungs and died in-
stantly—an inquest was held at Elopura. There are no written
advices.
I I .
And we drew down the blinds, for now we knew
that he was dead. How we accepted the inevitable
needs no telling. During the day a minstrel played
under my window “ Home, sweet Home,” and I tasted
all the bitterness of it. Then came the necessity of
occupation. But it had to be in his service. So we
made arrangements to bring him home.1 We visited
1 “ British North Borneo Company, 11, Old Broad Street, London,
“ 28th March, 1883.
“ D e a r S ir ,—The Court of Directors have learned with extreme
regret of the fatal accident that has befallen your son, Mr. Frank
Hatton, as reported by the telegraphic advices of Sir W. Medhurst;
and I am desired on their behalf to convey to you and to the other
members of your family the deep sympathy of the Court at the loss
H