Fossils, Finches and Fuegians: Charles Darwin’s Adventures and Discoveries on the Beagle. Richard Keynes
Charles arrived back in Shrewsbury on Monday, 29 August from his trip in North Wales with Sedgwick, and was given Peacock’s and Henslow’s letters by his sisters. His immediate and joyful reaction was to accept, but finding next morning that his father was strongly opposed to the scheme, he wrote sorrowfully to Henslow:
Mr Peacock’s letter arrived on Saturday, & I received it late yesterday evening. As far as my own mind is concerned, I should think, certainly most gladly have accepted the opportunity, which you so kindly have offered me. But my Father, although he does not decidedly refuse me, gives such strong advice against going, that I should not be comfortable if I did not follow it. My Fathers objections are these: the unfitting me to settle down as a clergyman; my little habit of seafaring; the shortness of the time & the chance of my not suiting Captain Fitzroy. It is certainly a very serious objection, the very short time for all my preparations, as not only body but mind wants making up for such an undertaking. But if it had not been for my father, I would have taken all risks … Even if I was to go, my Father disliking would take away all energy, & I should want a good stock of that. Again I must thank you; it adds a little to the heavy, but pleasant load of gratitude which I owe to you.44
A letter in similar terms that he also wrote to Peacock has not survived.
All was not lost, however, for Robert had recognised the considerable compliment that had been paid to his son by the two eminent academics in Cambridge, and tempered his disapproval by telling Charles, ‘If you can find any man of common sense who advises you to go, I will give my consent.’ He well knew who that man might be, and wrote to Josiah Wedgwood II on 30 August: ‘Charles will tell you of the offer he has had made to him of going for a voyage of discovery for 2 years. – I strongly object to it on various grounds, but I will not detail my reasons that he may have your unbiassed opinion on the subject, & if you feel differently from me I shall wish him to follow your advice.’45
Charles himself rode straight over to Maer, where he found his uncle and cousins full of enthusiasm for his embarking on the voyage, and by the evening all were urging him to reopen the case with his father. On 31 August, with Uncle Josiah at his elbow, he wrote an extremely apologetic note to his father, ending on a separate piece of paper with the list of objections to be answered:
I am afraid I am going to make you yet again very uncomfortable. I think you will excuse me once again stating my opinions on the offer of the Voyage. My excuse and reason is the different way all the Wedgwoods view the subject from what you & my sisters do … But pray do not consider that I am so bent on going, that I would for one single moment hesitate if you thought that after a short period, you should continue uncomfortable.
1 Disreputable to my character as a Clergyman hereafter
2 A wild scheme
3 That they must have offered to many others before me, the place of Naturalist
4 And from its not being accepted there must be some serious objection to the vessel or expedition
5 That I should never settle down to a steady life hereafter
6 That my accomodations [sic] would be most uncomfortable
7 That you should consider it as again changing my profession
8 That it would be a useless undertaking46
Enclosed with this letter was one from Josiah to Robert:
My dear Doctor I feel the responsibility of your application to me on the offer that has been made to Charles as being weighty, but as you have desired Charles to consult me I cannot refuse to give the result of such consideration as I have been able to give it. Charles has put down what he conceives to be your principal objections & I think the best course I can take will be to state what occurs to me upon each of them.
1— I should not think that it would be in any degree disreputable to his character as a clergyman. I should on the contrary think the offer honorable to him, and the pursuit of Natural History, though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman. 2— I hardly know how to meet this objection, but he would have definite objects upon which to apply himself, and might acquire and strengthen habits of application, and I should think would be as likely to do so in any way in which he is likely to pass the next two years at home. 3— The notion did not occur to me in reading the letters & on reading them again with that object in my mind I see no ground for it. 4— I cannot conceive that the Admiralty would send out a bad vessel on such a service. As to objections to the expedition, they will differ in each mans case & nothing would, I think, be inferred in Charles’s case if it were known that others had objected. 5— You are a much better judge of Charles’s character than I can be. If, on comparing this mode of spending the next two years, with the way in which he will probably spend them if he does not accept this offer, you think him more likely to be rendered unsteady & unable to settle, it is undoubtedly a weighty objection. Is it not the case that sailors are prone to settle in domestic and quiet habits. 6— I can form no opinion on this further than that, if appointed by the Admiralty, he will have a claim to be as well accommodated as the vessel will allow. 7— If I saw Charles now absorbed in professional studies I should probably think it would not be advisable to interrupt them, but this is not, and I think will not be, the case with him. His present pursuit of knowledge is in the same track as he would have to follow in the expedition. 8— The undertaking would be useless as regards his profession, but looking upon him as a man of enlarged curiousity, it affords him such an opportunity of seeing men and things as happens to few.
You will bear in mind that I have very little time for consideration & that you and Charles are the persons who must decide. I am / My dear Doctor / Affectionately yours / Josiah Wedgwood47
Uncle Jos had thus with calm sense disposed effectively of Robert’s rather exaggerated qualms, and his description of Charles as ‘a man of enlarged curiousity’ was truly prophetic.
The two letters were dispatched to Shrewsbury early on 1 September, leaving Josiah and Charles to take out their guns for what would normally have been a specially enjoyable occasion for them, the opening day of the partridge season. They both had much on their minds, and Charles had only brought down a single bird when at ten o’clock Josiah did what ‘few uncles would have done’, bundled him into a carriage, and whisked him off to Shrewsbury to do battle in person with Robert. But there they found to their relief that Robert had already changed his mind, and was now ready to give ‘all the assistance in my power’.
On this same day Beaufort had conveyed the news to Robert FitzRoy that ‘I believe my friend Mr Peacock of Triny College Cambe has succeeded in getting a “Savant” for you – A Mr Darwin grandson of the well known philosopher and poet – full of zeal and enterprize and having contemplated a voyage on his own account to S. America.’ And that afternoon Charles himself sat down at Shrewsbury and wrote for the first time directly to Beaufort, explaining that the situation had changed since he had sent his refusal to Henslow and Peacock, and that if the appointment was still unfilled ‘I shall be very happy to have the honor of accepting it’.
On Saturday, 2 September, Charles returned to Cambridge, and spent Sunday closeted with Henslow, ‘thinking what is to be done’. Henslow explained how he himself had nearly accepted the appointment, but turned it down because of his wife’s unhappiness at the prospect, while Leonard Jenyns had done the same because he could not desert his parish at Swaffham Bulbeck. At Henslow’s, Charles met Alexander Charles Wood, a cousin and good friend of FitzRoy, and currently an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, and pupil of Peacock. At Peacock’s urging, Wood had written