A sort of halo of sanctity was given to my father by the fact of his dining in the Captain’s cabin, so that the midshipmen used at first to call him “Sir,” a formality, however, which did not prevent his becoming fast friends with the younger officers. He wrote about the year 1861 or 1862 to Mr. P.G. King, M.L.C., Sydney, who, as before stated, was a midshipman on board the Beagle:–“The remembrance of old days, when we used to sit and talk on the booms of the Beagle, will always, to the day of my death, make me glad to hear of your happiness and prosperity.” Mr. King describes the pleasure my father seemed to take “in pointing out to me as a youngster the delights of the tropical nights, with their balmy breezes eddying out of the sails above us, and the sea lighted up by the passage of the ship through the never-ending streams of phosphorescent animalculae.”

It has been assumed that his ill-health in later years was due to his having suffered so much from sea-sickness. This he did not himself believe, but rather ascribed his bad health to the hereditary fault which came out as gout in some of the past generations. I am not quite clear as to how much he actually suffered from sea-sickness; my impression is distinct that, according to his own memory, he was not actually ill after the first three weeks, but constantly uncomfortable when the vessel pitched at all heavily. But, judging from his letters, and from the evidence of some of the officers, it would seem that in later years he forgot the extent of the discomfort from which he suffered. Writing June 3, 1836, from the Cape of Good Hope, he says: “It is a lucky thing for me that the voyage is drawing to its close, for I positively suffer more from sea-sickness now than three years ago.” Admiral Lort Stokes wrote to the “Times”, April 25, 1883:–

“May I beg a corner for my feeble testimony to the marvellous persevering endurance in the cause of science of that great naturalist, my old and lost friend, Mr. Charles Darwin, whose remains are so very justly to be honoured with a resting-place in Westminster Abbey?

“Perhaps no one can better testify to his early and most trying labours than myself. We worked together for several years at the same table in the poop cabin of the ‘Beagle’ during her celebrated voyage, he with his microscope and myself at the charts. It was often a very lively end of the little craft, and distressingly so to my old friend, who suffered greatly from sea-sickness. After perhaps an hour’s work he would say to me, ‘Old fellow, I must take the horizontal for it,’ that being the best relief position from ship motion; a stretch out on one side of the table for some time would enable him to resume his labours for a while, when he had again to lie down.

“It was distressing to witness this early sacrifice of Mr. Darwin’s health, who ever afterwards seriously felt the ill-effects of the ‘Beagle’s’ voyage.”

Mr. A.B. Usborne writes, “He was a dreadful sufferer from sea-sickness, and at times, when I have been officer of the watch, and reduced the sails, making the ship more easy, and thus relieving him, I have been pronounced by him to be ‘a good officer,’ and he would resume his microscopic observations in the poop cabin.” The amount of work that he got through on the Beagle shows that he was habitually in full vigour; he had, however, one severe illness, in South America, when he was received into the house of an Englishman, Mr. Corfield, who tended him with careful kindness. I have heard him say that in this illness every secretion of the body was affected, and that when he described the symptoms to his father Dr. Darwin could make no guess as to the nature of the disease. My father was sometimes inclined to think that the breaking up of his health was to some extent due to this attack.

The Beagle letters give ample proof of his strong love of home, and all connected with it, from his father down to Nancy, his old nurse, to whom he sometimes sends his love.

His delight in home-letters is shown in such passages as:–“But if you knew the glowing, unspeakable delight, which I felt at being certain that my father and all of you were well, only four months ago, you would not grudge the labour lost in keeping up the regular series of letters.”

Or again–his longing to return in words like these:–“It is too delightful to think that I shall see the leaves fall and hear the robin sing next autumn at Shrewsbury. My feelings are those of a schoolboy to the smallest point; I doubt whether ever boy longed for his holidays as much as I do to see you all again. I am at present, although nearly half the world is between me and home, beginning to arrange what I shall do, where I shall go during the first week.”

Another feature in his letters is the surprise and delight with which he hears of his collections and observations being of some use. It seems only to have gradually occurred to him that he would ever be more than collector of specimens and facts, of which the great men were to make use. And even as to the value of his collections he seems to have had much doubt, for he wrote to Henslow in 1834:–“I really began to think that my collections were so poor that you were puzzled what to say; the case is now quite on the opposite tack, for you are guilty of exciting all my vain feelings to a most comfortable pitch; if hard work will atone for these thoughts, I vow it shall not be spared.”

After his return and settlement in London, he began to realise the value of what he had done, and wrote to Captain Fitz-Roy–“However others may look back to the ‘Beagle’s’ voyage, now that the small disagreeable parts are well-nigh forgotten, I think it far the most fortunate circumstance in my life that the chance afforded by your offer of taking a Naturalist fell on me. I often have the most vivid and delightful pictures of what I saw on board the ‘Beagle’ pass before my eyes. These recollections, and what I learnt on Natural History, I would not exchange for twice ten thousand a year.”

In selecting the following series of letters, I have been guided by the wish to give as much personal detail as possible. I have given only a few scientific letters, to illustrate the way in which he worked, and how he regarded his own results. In his ‘Journal of Researches’ he gives incidentally some idea of his personal character; the letters given in the present chapter serve to amplify in fresher and more spontaneous words that impression of his personality which the ‘Journal’ has given to so many readers.]

Sir James Sulivan tells me that the chief fault in the outfit of the expedition was the want of a second smaller vessel to act as tender. This want was so much felt by Captain Fitz-Roy that he hired two decked boats to survey the coast of Patagonia, at a cost of 1100 pounds, a sum which he had to supply, although the boats saved several thousand pounds to the country. He afterwards bought a schooner to act as a tender, thus saving the country a further large amount. He was ultimately ordered to sell the schooner, and was compelled to bear the loss himself, and it was only after his death that some inadequate compensation was made for all the losses which he suffered through his zeal.

For want of a proper tender, much of the work had to be done in small open whale boats, which were sent away from the ship for weeks together, and this in a climate, where the crews were exposed to severe hardships from the almost constant rains, which sometimes continued for weeks together. The completeness of the equipment was also in other respects largely due to the public spirit of Captain Fitz-Roy. He provided at his own cost an artist, and a skilled instrument-maker to look after the chronometers. (Either one or both were on the books for victuals.) Captain Fitz-Roy’s wish was to take “some well-educated and scientific person” as his private guest, but this generous offer was only accepted by my father on condition of being allowed to pay a fair share of the expense of the Captain’s table; he was, moreover, on the ship’s books for victuals.

In a letter to his sister (July 1832) he writes contentedly of his manner of life at sea:–“I do not think I have ever given you an account of how the day passes. We breakfast at eight o’clock. The invariable maxim is to throw away all politeness–that is, never to wait for each other, and bolt off the minute one has done eating, etc. At sea, when the weather is calm, I work at marine animals, with which the whole ocean abounds. If there is any sea up I am either sick or contrive to read some voyage or travels. At one we dine. You shore-going people are lamentably mistaken about the manner of living on board. We have never yet (nor shall we) dined off salt meat. Rice and peas and calavanses are excellent vegetables, and, with good bread, who could want more? Judge Alderson could not be more temperate, as nothing but water comes on the table. At five we have tea. The midshipmen’s berth have all their meals an hour before us, and the gun-room an hour afterwards.”

The crew of the Beagle consisted of Captain Fitz-Roy, “Commander and Surveyor,” two lieutenants, one of whom (the first lieutenant) was the late Captain Wickham, Governor of Queensland; the present Admiral Sir James Sulivan, K.C.B., was the second lieutenant. Besides the master and two mates, there was an assistant-surveyor, the present Admiral Lort Stokes. There were also a surgeon, assistant-surgeon, two midshipmen, master’s mate, a volunteer (1st class), purser, carpenter, clerk, boatswain, eight marines, thirty-four seamen, and six boys.

There are not now (1882) many survivors of my father’s old ship-mates. Admiral Mellersh, Mr. Hammond, and Mr. Philip King, of the Legislative Council of Sydney, and Mr. Usborne, are among the number. Admiral Johnson died almost at the same time as my father.

He retained to the last a most pleasant recollection of the voyage of the Beagle, and of the friends he made on board her. To his children their names were familiar, from his many stories of the voyage, and we caught his feeling of friendship for many who were to us nothing more than names.

It is pleasant to know how affectionately his old companions remembered him.

Sir James Sulivan remained, throughout my father’s lifetime, one of his best and truest friends. He writes:–“I can confidently express my belief that during the five years in the Beagle, he was never known to be out of temper, or to say one unkind or hasty word of or to any one. You will therefore readily understand how this, combined with the admiration of his energy and ability, led to our giving him the name of ‘the dear old Philosopher.’” (His other nickname was “The Flycatcher.” I have heard my father tell how he overheard the boatswain of the Beagle showing another boatswain over the ship, and pointing out the officers: “That’s our first lieutenant; that’s our doctor; that’s our flycatcher.”) Admiral Mellersh writes to me:–“Your father is as vividly in my mind’s eye as if it was only a week ago that I was in the Beagle with him; his genial smile and conversation can never be forgotten by any who saw them and heard them. I was sent on two or three occasions away in a boat with him on some of his scientific excursions, and always looked forward to these trips with great pleasure, an anticipation that, unlike many others, was always realised. I think he was the only man I ever knew against whom I never heard a word said; and as people when shut up in a ship for five years are apt to get cross with each other, that is saying a good deal. Certainly we were always so hard at work, we had no time to quarrel, but if we had done so, I feel sure your father would have tried (and have been successful) to throw oil on the troubled waters.”

Admiral Stokes, Mr. King, Mr. Usborne, and Mr. Hamond, all speak of their friendship with him in the same warm-hearted way.

Of the life on board and on shore his letters give some idea. Captain Fitz-Roy was a strict officer, and made himself thoroughly respected both by officers and men. The occasional severity of his manner was borne with because every one on board knew that his first thought was his duty, and that he would sacrifice anything to the real welfare of the ship. My father writes, July 1834, “We all jog on very well together, there is no quarrelling on board, which is something to say. The Captain keeps all smooth by rowing every one in turn.” The best proof that Fitz-Roy was valued as a commander is given by the fact that many (‘Voyage of the “Adventure” and Beagle,’ vol. ii. page 21.) of the crew had sailed with him in the Beagle’s former voyage, and there were a few officers as well as seamen and marines, who had served in the Adventure or Beagle during the whole of that expedition.

My father speaks of the officers as a fine determined set of men, and especially of Wickham, the first lieutenant, as a “glorious fellow.” The latter being responsible for the smartness and appearance of the ship strongly objected to his littering the decks, and spoke of specimens as “d–d beastly devilment,” and used to add, “If I were skipper, I would soon have you and all your d–d mess out of the place.”

A sort of halo of sanctity was given to my father by the fact of his dining in the Captain’s cabin, so that the midshipmen used at first to call him “Sir,” a formality, however, which did not prevent his becoming fast friends with the younger officers. He wrote about the year 1861 or 1862 to Mr. P.G. King, M.L.C., Sydney, who, as before stated, was a midshipman on board the Beagle:–“The remembrance of old days, when we used to sit and talk on the booms of the Beagle, will always, to the day of my death, make me glad to hear of your happiness and prosperity.” Mr. King describes the pleasure my father seemed to take “in pointing out to me as a youngster the delights of the tropical nights, with their balmy breezes eddying out of the sails above us, and the sea lighted up by the passage of the ship through the never-ending streams of phosphorescent animalculae.”

“There is a natural good-humoured energy in his letters just like himself.”–From a letter of Dr. R.W. Darwin’s to Prof. Henslow.

[The object of the Beagle voyage is briefly described in my father’s ‘Journal of Researches,’ page 1, as being “to complete the Survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under Captain King in 1826 to 1830; to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and some island in the Pacific; and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the world.”

The Beagle is described as a well-built little vessel, of 235 tons, rigged as a barque, and carrying six guns. She belonged to the old class of ten-gun brigs, which were nicknamed “coffins,” from their liability to go down in severe weather. They were very “deep-waisted,” that is, their bulwarks were high in proportion to their size, so that a heavy sea breaking over them might be highly dangerous. Nevertheless, she lived through the five years’ work, in the most stormy regions in the world, under Commanders Stokes and Fitz-Roy, without a serious accident. When re-commissioned in 1831 for her second voyage, she was found (as I learn from Admiral Sir James Sulivan) to be so rotten that she had practically to be rebuilt, and it was this that caused the long delay in refitting. The upper deck was raised, making her much safer in heavy weather, and giving her far more comfortable accommodation below. By these alterations and by the strong sheathing added to her bottom she was brought up to 242 tons burthen. It is a proof of the splendid seamanship of Captain Fitz-Roy and his officers that she returned without having carried away a spar, and that in only one of the heavy storms that she encountered was she in great danger.

She was fitted out for the expedition with all possible care, being supplied with carefully chosen spars and ropes, six boats, and a “dinghy;” lightning conductors, “invented by Mr. Harris, were fixed in all the masts, the bowsprits, and even in the flying jib-boom.” To quote my father’s description, written from Devonport, November 17, 1831: “Everybody, who can judge, says it is one of the grandest voyages that has almost ever been sent out. Everything is on a grand scale. Twenty-four chronometers. The whole ship is fitted up with mahogany; she is the admiration of the whole place. In short, everything is as prosperous as human means can make it.”

Owing to the smallness of the vessel, every one on board was cramped for room, and my father’s accommodation seems to have been small enough: “I have just room to turn round,” he writes to Henslow, “and that is all.” Admiral Sir James Sulivan writes to me: “The narrow space at the end of the chart-table was his only accommodation for working, dressing, and sleeping; the hammock being left hanging over his head by day, when the sea was at all rough, that he might lie on it with a book in his hand when he could not any longer sit at the table. His only stowage for clothes being several small drawers in the corner, reaching from deck to deck; the top one being taken out when the hammock was hung up, without which there was not length for it, so then the foot-clews took the place of the top drawer. For specimens he had a very small cabin under the forecastle.”

Yet of this narrow room he wrote enthusiastically, September 17, 1831:– “When I wrote last I was in great alarm about my cabin. The cabins were not then marked out, but when I left they were, and mine is a capital one, certainly next best to the Captain’s and remarkably light. My companion most luckily, I think, will turn out to be the officer whom I shall like best. Captain Fitz-Roy says he will take care that one corner is so fitted up that I shall be comfortable in it and shall consider it my home, but that also I shall have the run of his. My cabin is the drawing one; and in the middle is a large table, on which we two sleep in hammocks. But for the first two months there will be no drawing to be done, so that it will be quite a luxurious room, and good deal larger than the Captain’s cabin.”

My father used to say that it was the absolute necessity of tidiness in the cramped space of the Beagle that helped ‘to give him his methodical habits of working.’ On the Beagle, too, he would say, that he learned what he considered the golden rule for saving time; i.e., taking care of the minutes.

Sir James Sulivan tells me that the chief fault in the outfit of the expedition was the want of a second smaller vessel to act as tender. This want was so much felt by Captain Fitz-Roy that he hired two decked boats to survey the coast of Patagonia, at a cost of 1100 pounds, a sum which he had to supply, although the boats saved several thousand pounds to the country. He afterwards bought a schooner to act as a tender, thus saving the country a further large amount. He was ultimately ordered to sell the schooner, and was compelled to bear the loss himself, and it was only after his death that some inadequate compensation was made for all the losses which he suffered through his zeal.

Devonport, November 15, 1831.

My dear Henslow,

The orders are come down from the Admiralty, and everything is finally settled. We positively sail the last day of this month, and I think before that time the vessel will be ready. She looks most beautiful, even a landsman must admire her. We all think her the most perfect vessel ever turned out of the Dockyard. One thing is certain, no vessel has been fitted out so expensively, and with so much care. Everything that can be made so is of mahogany, and nothing can exceed the neatness and beauty of all the accommodations. The instructions are very general, and leave a great deal to the Captain’s discretion and judgment, paying a substantial as well as a verbal compliment to him.

…

No vessel ever left England with such a set of Chronometers, viz., twenty-four, all very good ones. In short, everything is well, and I have only now to pray for the sickness to moderate its fierceness, and I shall do very well. Yet I should not call it one of the very best opportunities for natural history that has ever occurred. The absolute want of room is an evil that nothing can surmount. I think L. Jenyns did very wisely in not coming, that is judging from my own feelings, for I am sure if I had left college some few years, or been those years older, I never could have endured it. The officers (excepting the Captain) are like the freshest freshmen, that is in their manners, in everything else widely different. Remember me most kindly to him, and tell him if ever he dreams in the night of palm-trees, he may in the morning comfort himself with the assurance that the voyage would not have suited him.

I am much obliged for your advice, de Mathematicis. I suspect when I am struggling with a triangle, I shall often wish myself in your room, and as for those wicked sulky surds, I do not know what I shall do without you to conjure them. My time passes away very pleasantly. I know one or two pleasant people, foremost of whom is Mr. Thunder-and-lightning Harris (William Snow Harris, the Electrician.), whom I dare say you have heard of. My chief employment is to go on board the Beagle, and try to look as much like a sailor as I can. I have no evidence of having taken in man, woman or child.

I am going to ask you to do one more commission, and I trust it will be the last. When I was in Cambridge, I wrote to Mr. Ash, asking him to send my College account to my father, after having subtracted about 30 pounds for my furniture. This he has forgotten to do, and my father has paid the bill, and I want to have the furniture-money transmitted to my father. Perhaps you would be kind enough to speak to Mr. Ash. I have cost my father so much money, I am quite ashamed of myself.

I will write once again before sailing, and perhaps you will write to me before then.

Remember me to Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Peacock.

Believe me, yours affectionately,
Chas. Darwin.

Charles Darwin to J.S. Henslow.

Devonport, December 3, 1831.

My dear Henslow,

It is now late in the evening, and to-night I am going to sleep on board. On Monday we most certainly sail, so you may guess what a desperate state of confusion we are all in. If you were to hear the various exclamations of the officers, you would suppose we had scarcely had a week’s notice. I am just in the same way taken all aback, and in such a bustle I hardly know what to do. The number of things to be done is infinite. I look forward even to sea-sickness with something like satisfaction, anything must be better than this state of anxiety. I am very much obliged for your last kind and affectionate letter. I always like advice from you, and no one whom I have the luck to know is more capable of giving it than yourself. Recollect, when you write, that I am a sort of protege of yours, and that it is your bounden duty to lecture me.

I will now give you my direction; it is at first, Rio; but if you will send me a letter on the first Tuesday (when the packet sails) in February, directed to Monte Video, it will give me very great pleasure; I shall so much enjoy hearing a little Cambridge news. Poor dear old Alma Mater! I am a very worthy son in as far as affection goes. I have little more to write about…I cannot end this without telling you how cordially I feel grateful for the kindness you have shown me during my Cambridge life. Much of the pleasure and utility which I may have derived from it is owing to you. I long for the time when we shall again meet, and till then believe me, my dear Henslow,

Your affectionate and obliged friend,
Ch. Darwin.

Remember me most kindly to those who take any interest in me.

17 Spring Gardens (and here I shall remain till I start)
[September 19, 1831].

My dear Fox,

I returned from my expedition to see the Beagle at Plymouth on Saturday, and found your most welcome letter on my table. It is quite ridiculous what a very long period these last twenty days have appeared to me, certainly much more than as many weeks on ordinary occasions; this will account for my not recollecting how much I told you of my plans.

…

But on the whole it is a grand and fortunate opportunity; there will be so many things to interest me–fine scenery and an endless occupation and amusement in the different branches of Natural History; then again navigation and meteorology will amuse me on the voyage, joined to the grand requisite of there being a pleasant set of officers, and, as far as I can judge, this is certain. On the other hand there is very considerable risk to one’s life and health, and the leaving for so very long a time so many people whom I dearly love, is oftentimes a feeling so painful that it requires all my resolution to overcome it. But everything is now settled, and before the 20th of October I trust to be on the broad sea. My objection to the vessel is its smallness, which cramps one so for room for packing my own body and all my cases, etc., etc. As to its safety, I hope the Admiralty are the best judges; to a landsman’s eye she looks very small. She is a ten-gun three-masted brig, but, I believe, an excellent vessel. So much for my future plans, and now for my present. I go tonight by the mail to Cambridge, and from thence, after settling my affairs, proceed to Shrewsbury (most likely on Friday 23rd, or perhaps before); there I shall stay a few days, and be in London by the 1st of October, and start for Plymouth on the 9th.

And now for the principal part of my letter. I do not know how to tell you how very kind I feel your offer of coming to see me before I leave England. Indeed I should like it very much; but I must tell you decidedly that I shall have very little time to spare, and that little time will be almost spoilt by my having so much to think about; and secondly, I can hardly think it worth your while to leave your parish for such a cause. But I shall never forget such generous kindness. Now I know you will act just as you think right; but do not come up for my sake. Any time is the same for me. I think from this letter you will know as much of my plans as I do myself, and will judge accordingly the where and when to write to me. Every now and then I have moments of glorious enthusiasm, when I think of the date and cocoa-trees, the palms and ferns so lofty and beautiful, everything new, everything sublime. And if I live to see years in after life, how grand must such recollections be! Do you know Humboldt? (If you don’t, do so directly.) With what intense pleasure he appears always to look back on the days spent in the tropical countries. I hope when you next write to Osmaston, [you will] tell them my scheme, and give them my kindest regards and farewells.

Good-bye, my dear Fox,
Yours ever sincerely,
Chas. Darwin.

Charles Darwin to R. Fitz-Roy.

17 Spring Gardens [October 17? 1831].

Dear Fitz-Roy,

Very many thanks for your letter; it has made me most comfortable, for it would have been heart-breaking to have left anything quite behind, and I never should have thought of sending things by some other vessel. This letter will, I trust, accompany some talc. I read your letter without attending to the name. But I have now procured some from Jones, which appears very good, and I will send it this evening by the mail. You will be surprised at not seeing me propria persona instead of my handwriting. But I had just found out that the large steam-packet did not intend to sail on Sunday, and I was picturing to myself a small, dirty cabin, with the proportion of 39-40ths of the passengers very sick, when Mr. Earl came in and told me the Beagle would not sail till the beginning of November. This, of course, settled the point; so that I remain in London one week more. I shall then send heavy goods by steamer and start myself by the coach on Sunday evening.

Have you a good set of mountain barometers? Several great guns in the scientific world have told me some points in geology to ascertain which entirely depend on their relative height. If you have not a good stock, I will add one more to the list. I ought to be ashamed to trouble you so much, but will you send one line to inform me? I am daily becoming more anxious to be off, and, if I am so, you must be in a perfect fever. What a glorious day the 4th of November will be to me! My second life will then commence, and it shall be as a birthday for the rest of my life.

Believe me, dear Fitz-Roy,
Yours most sincerely,
Chas. Darwin.

Monday.–I hope I have not put you to much inconvenience by ordering the room in readiness.