His Majesty's Government therefore determined to send out an expedition to explore and survey such portions of the Australian coasts as were wholly or in part unknown to Captains Flinders and King.
H.M. SLOOP BEAGLE.
For this service H.M. Sloop Beagle was commissioned at Woolwich, in the second week of February 1837 by Commander Wickham, who had already twice accompanied her in her wanderings over the least known and most boisterous waters of the globe; first, in her sister ship of discovery, the Adventure, Captain King, and afterwards as first lieutenant of the sloop now entrusted to his command. Under Captain Wickham some of the most important objects of the voyage were achieved, but in consequence of his retirement in March 1841, owing to ill health, the command of the Beagle was entrusted to the author of the following pages; and as, by a singular combination of circumstances, no less than three long and hazardous voyages of discovery have been successfully completed in this vessel, some account of her here may not be wholly uninteresting. The reader will be surprised to learn that she belongs to that much-abused class, the 10-gun brigs--COFFINS, as they are not infrequently designated in the service; notwithstanding which, she has proved herself, under every possible variety of trial, in all kinds of weather, an excellent sea boat. She was built at Woolwich in 1819, and her first exploit was the novel and unprecedented one of passing through old London bridge (the first rigged man-of-war that had ever floated so high upon the waters of the Thames) in order to salute at the coronation of King George the Fourth.
VOYAGES OF THE BEAGLE.
Towards the close of the year 1825 she was first commissioned by Commander Pringle Stokes,* as second officer of the expedition which sailed from Plymouth on the 22nd of May, 1826, under the command of Captain Phillip Parker King; an account of which voyage, published by Captain R. Fitzroy, who ultimately succeeded to the vacancy occasioned by the lamented death of Captain Stokes, and who subsequently commanded the Beagle during her second solitary, but most interesting expedition--has added to the well-earned reputation of the seaman, the more enduring laurels which literature and science can alone supply.
(*Footnote. Not related to the author.)
DEATH OF CAPTAIN STOKES.
Though painful recollections surround the subject, it would be hardly possible to offer an account of the earlier history of the Beagle, and yet make no allusion to the fate of her first commander, in whom the service lost, upon the testimony of one well qualified to judge, "an active, intelligent, and most energetic officer:" and well has it been remarked by the same high authority, "that those who have been exposed to one of such trials as his, upon an unknown lee shore, during the worst description of weather, will understand and appreciate some of those feelings which wrought too powerfully upon his excitable mind." The constant and pressing cares connected with his responsible commanded--the hardships and the dangers to which his crew were of necessity exposed during the survey of Tierra del Fuego--and in some degree the awful gloom which rests forever on that storm-swept coast--finally destroyed the equilibrium of a mind distracted with anxiety and shattered by disease.
Perhaps no circumstance could prove more strongly the peculiar difficulties connected with a service of this nature, nor could any more clearly testify that in this melancholy instance every thought of self-preservation was absorbed by a zeal to promote the objects of the expedition, which neither danger, disappointment, anxiety, nor disease could render less earnest, or less vigilant, even to the last!
The two vessels returned to England in October, 1830, when the Adventure was paid off at Woolwich, and the Beagle at Plymouth; she was recommissioned by Captain Fitzroy--to whose delightful narrative allusion has been already made--on the 4th July, 1831,* and continued under his command till her return to Woolwich in November, 1836; where, after undergoing some slight repairs, she was a third time put in commission for the purposes of discovery, under Commander Wickham, her former first lieutenant; and shortly afterwards commenced that third voyage, of the toils and successes of which, as an humble contribution to the stores of geographical knowledge, I have attempted in the following pages to convey as faithful and complete an account as the circumstances under which the materials have been prepared will allow. Nor will the subject less interest myself, when I call to mind, that for eighteen years the Beagle has been to me a home upon the wave--that my first cruise as a Middy was made in her; that serving in her alone I have passed through every grade in my profession to the rank I have now the honour to hold--that in her I have known the excitements of imminent danger, and the delights of long anticipated success; and that with her perils and her name are connected those recollections of early and familiar friendship, to which even memory herself fails to do full justice!
(*Footnote. The Beagle was stripped to her timbers, and rebuilt under this able officer's own inspection: and among other improvements, she had the lightning conductors of the well-known Snow Harris, Esquire, F.R.S. fitted to her masts; a circumstance to which she has more than once been indebted for her safety.)
ADMIRALTY INSTRUCTIONS.
The following instructions were received by Captain Wickham, previous to our departure from Woolwich, and under them I subsequently acted.
BY THE COMMISSIONERS FOR EXECUTING THE OFFICE OF LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, ETC.
Whereas his Majesty's surveying vessel, Beagle, under your command, has been fitted out for the purpose of exploring certain parts of the north-west coast of New Holland, and of surveying the best channels in the straits of Bass and Torres, you are hereby required and directed, as soon as she shall be in all respects ready, to repair to Plymouth Sound, in order to obtain a chronometric departure from the west end of the breakwater, and then to proceed, with all convenient expedition, to Santa Cruz, in Tenerife.
In the voyage there, you are to endeavour to pass over the reputed site of the Eight Stones, within the limits pointed out by our Hydrographer; but keeping a strict lookout for any appearance of discoloured water, and getting a few deep casts of the lead.
At Tenerife you are to remain three days, for the purpose of rating the chronometers, when you are to make the best of your way to Bahia, in order to replenish your water, and from thence to Simon's Bay, at the Cape of Good Hope; where, having without loss of time obtained the necessary refreshments, you will proceed direct to Swan River; but as the severe gales which are sometimes felt at that settlement may not have entirely ceased, you will approach that coast with due caution.
At Swan River, you are to land Lieutenants Grey and Lushington, as well as to refit and water with all convenient despatch; and you are then to proceed immediately to the north-west coast of New Holland, making the coast in the vicinity of Dampier Land. The leading objects of your examination there will be, the extent of the two deep inlets connected with Roebuck Bay and Cygnet Bay, where the strength and elevation of the tides have led to the supposition that Dampier Land is an island, and that the above openings unite in the mouth of a river, or that they branch off from a wide and deep gulf. Moderate and regular soundings extend far out from Cape Villaret: you will, therefore, in the first instance, make that headland; and, keeping along the southern shore of Roebuck Bay, penetrate at once as far as the Beagle and her boats can find sufficient depth of water; but you must, however, take care not too precipitately to commit His Majesty's ship among these rapid tides, nor to entangle her among the numerous rocks with which all this part of the coast seems to abound; but by a cautious advance of your boats, for the double purpose of feeling your way, and at the same time of surveying, you will establish her in a judicious series of stations, equally beneficial to the progress of the survey, and to the support of your detached people.
Prince Regent River appears to have been fully examined by Captain King up to its freshwater rapids, but as the adjacent ridges of rocky land which were seen on both sides of Collier Bay, were only laid down from their distant appearance, it is probable that they will resolve themselves into a collection of islands in the rear of Dampier Land; and it is possible that they may form avenues to some wide expanse of water, or to the mouth of some large river, the discovery of which would be highly interesting.
As this question, whether there are or are