2 Dec 1856

“Your dear boy has been taken from you & is now in a better and happier world. His end was peace. This morng, Novr 24th off Balaklava, he breathed his last. I was with him at the time, tho’ the change from Earthly to life Eternal, was so gentle as to be scarcely perceptible. Up to within the last hour he was perfectly conscious, & continually uttering prayers, his thoughts evidently fixed on above”.
Two days before his death they had to perform an operation in the throat to prevent suffocation, which they hoped might save his life, it prolonged it 48 hours & at first he rallied so much that the doctors had great hope, but his strength was too much exhausted by seven weeks fever- Captn Campbell Freson

“The operation was performed with his sanction, & he bore it beautifully, joining in the prayers that the chaplain himself read to him, apparently with much comfort - & his repeating two passages written on the flyleaf of his Bible, by one of his Aunts who gave it to him, seemed to afford him much pleasure”

“I and the Chaplain were most fond & thought most highly of him, for indeed he was no ordinary boy” - He had been five months at sea.

[Newspaper clipping stitched onto the end of the letter:]
On the 24th ult., on board H.M steam frigate Vulture, while cruising in the Black Sea, Robert Malcolm Dewar. Naval Cadet, youngest son of James Dewar, Esq., of 6, Charles-street, Lowndes-square, aged 13. He was buried at Therapia, with military honours.