Darwin traveled to Devonport by coach on October 24, 1831. “Arrived here in the evening after a pleasant drive from London,” was his first entry in the diary he had decided to keep during the voyage. He put up at a hotel and went aboard the Beagle the next day.
25th Went on board the Beagle, found her moored to the Active hulk & in a state of bustle & confusion.—The men were chiefly employed in painting the fore part & fitting up the Cabins.—The last time I saw her was on the 12th of Septr she was in the Dock yard & without her masts or bulkheads & looked more like a wreck than a vessel commissioned to go round the world.
26th Wet cold day, went on board, found the Carpenters busy fitting up the drawers in the Poop Cabin. My own private corner looks so small that I cannot help fearing that many of my things must be left behind.
“Went on board” was his only entry for November 2. Darwin was also writing daily letters to his family and friends, and his better efforts at description went into these. The diary remained, for a time, an uninspired itemization of the main points of his day. His style, expression, and the attention he gave to his daily log were to improve, however: on publication in 1839, his Journal of Researches, fashioned from this diary, became an instant bestseller, and has remained so for 165 years.
The Beagle had been due to sail in early November, but preparations delayed her departure for more than a month, and then westerly gales in the English Channel kept her pinned ashore. At first Darwin amused himself observing the frantic activity aboard the ship, and walking to and from Plymouth with FitzRoy and some of the junior officers, sometimes helping them with their abstruse preparations.
Monday 31st (October) Went with Mr Stokes [mate and assistant surveyor John Lort Stokes, who had been a midshipman on the Beagle’s first voyage] to Plymouth and staid with him whilst he prepared the astronomical house belonging to the Beagle for observations on the dipping needle….
4th (November) Cap FitzRoy took me in the Commissioners boat to the breakwater, where we staid for more than an hour. Cap. FitzRoy was employed in taking angles, so as to connect a particular stone, from which Cap King commenced for the last voyage his longitudes, to the quay at Clarence Baths, where the true time is now taken.
Here, FitzRoy was doing for geography what his chronometers did for time, and what the zero meridian of longitude at Greenwich does for east and west around the world: he was starting with a known position, or value, on which to base all subsequent measurements. His chronometer and sextant readings for the next five years, all his determinations of longitude, and positions of rocks, headlands, shorelines, islands, and continents, would be laid down according to the geographic relationship they bore to a stone in Plymouth’s breakwater. That arbitrary absolute provided the key to a graspable shape of the whole world.
As busy as he was, FitzRoy did not neglect one aspect of his private life: in Plymouth he met a young woman he liked, Mary O’Brien, the daughter of a local gentleman and army major general. She liked him too. The dashing young captain visited the O’Brien house as often as he could, but he kept it to himself; not even Darwin was aware of his interest in anything beyond the demands of the coming voyage.
Darwin continued trying to make himself useful, or at least amuse himself, but this became more difficult as the weeks in port wore on.
5th (November) Wretched, miserable day, remained reading in the house.
6th Went with Musters to the Chapel in the Dock-yard.—It rained torrents all the evening….
Monday 7th Staid at home.
8th In the morning marked time [i.e., Darwin noted the time] whilst Stokes took the altitude of the sun.—Went on board the Beagle; she now begins for the first time to look clean & well arranged.
10th Assisted Cap. FitzRoy at the Athaeneum in reading the various angles of the dipping needle….
11th Went again to the Athaeneum & spent the whole day at the dipping needle.—The end, which it is attempted to obtain, is a knowledge of the exact point in the globe to which the needle points. This means of obtaining it is to take, under all different circumstances, a great number of observations, & from them to find out the mean point.—The operation is a very long & delicate one….
12th Took a walk to some very large Limestone quarries, returned home & then went on board the Beagle.—The men had just finished painting her…. For the first time I felt a fine naval fervour; nobody could look at her without admiration.
13th Walked to Saltram & rode with Lord Borrington to Exmoor to see the Granite formation….
15th Went with Cap FitzRoy to Plymouth & were unpleasantly employed in finding out the inaccuracies of Gambeys new dipping needle.
17th A very quiet day.
18th Cap FitzRoy has been busy for these last two days with the Lords of the Admiralty.
20th Went to Church & heard a very stupid sermon, & afterwards took a long walk….
Darwin was more than simply bored. He was suffering crushing loneliness and apprehension. With too much time on his hands he was becoming anxious about the coming voyage. He worried about what might happen to him while he was away, and to loved ones at home. He developed a rash—probably cold sores—around his mouth. Always a vivid hypochondriac, he now became worried about his heart and began to believe he would be too sick to sail. Years later he was able to see this in perspective.
These two months at Plymouth were the most miserable which I ever spent, though I exerted myself in various ways. I was out of spirits at the thought of leaving all my family and friends for so long a time, and the weather seemed to me inexpressibly gloomy. I was also troubled with palpitations and pain about the heart, and like many a young ignorant man, especially one with a smattering of medical knowledge, was convinced that I had heart disease. I did not consult any doctor, as I fully expected to hear the verdict that I was not fit for the voyage, and I was resolved to go at all hazards.
Other passengers gathered at Plymouth. On November 13, the Fuegians arrived by steam packet from London, accompanied by their schoolmaster, Mr. Jenkins. They remained ashore until the Beagle sailed. There is little record of what they did in the weeks while they waited for the ship to sail. There may have been a few occasions when FitzRoy took them to visit curious local notables, admirals, and friends, but such visits would not have been on the scale of their former socializing. FitzRoy was fully occupied with his preparations for the coming voyage, and he was no longer as comfortable showing off his Fuegians as he had been. He was still keeping Fuegia Basket separated from her two male companions; she stayed in Weakley’s Hotel in Devonport, while the other two were put up elsewhere. His primary concern with them now was to hustle them out of the country as quickly as possible.
With them from London came a young missionary, Richard Matthews, recruited by Reverend William Wilson of Walthamstow, who was to sail to Tierra del Fuego and help the newly civilized Fuegians establish a mission. Still a teenager, Matthews was afire with religious fervor and the opportunity to put himself to God’s use. His older brother was a missionary in New Zealand, a compelling role model for the younger man. But New Zealand was a sylvan Eden being farmed and settled by English families, and its native Maoris were a fierce, intelligent, highly cultured people. No advice or descriptions of the missionary life from his brother, nor his acquaintance with the roughly Anglicized York, Jemmy, and Fuegia from Walthamstow, could have prepared Matthews for the reality of an existence by himself at the far storm-wracked edge of the world with only unreconstructed Fuegians for neighbors. But he was ready, he believed, quivering with zeal, and, thanks to the generosity of Christian well-wishers, fully equipped. Reverend Wilson had raised a subscription to supply Matthews and the Walthamstow Fuegians with the necessities to recreate a little piece of God-fearing England in that wild foreign place. Stowed aboard the Beagle in October were their supplies: chamber pots, tea trays, complete sets of crockery, soup tureens, beaver hats, and white linen, in addition to books, tools, and blankets. Space was found for all these items inside the Beagle’s crammed hold, with “some very fair jokes enjoyed by the seamen” who packed them aboard.
On Monday November 21, Darwin brought all his books and instruments aboard the ship. His quarters were the poop cabin, which he shared with Stokes, and midshipman Phillip Gidley King, the seventeen-year-old son of Captain King, who had commanded the Adventure. The tiny 10-foot by 10-foot cabin that these three shared and filled with all their belongings was almost entirely taken up by a large chart table and rows of drawers the carpenters had built into the fore and aft bulkheads and along the sides of the hull. Stokes slept in a bunk just outside the chart room, and King’s and Darwin’s only beds were hammocks slung over the chart table. The space in the cabin was tight and exacting of movement and behavior. Darwin, who was over 6 feet tall and had never before been restricted to such close quarters, was, in the beginning, dismayed by the lack of space.
22 November Went on board & returned in a panic on the old subject want of room. returned to the vessel with Cap FitzRoy, who is such an effectual & goodnatured contriver that the very drawers enlarge on his appearance & all difficulties smooth away.
The rest of the ship was to be equally crammed full of people and their belongings. Seventy-three men and one girl—Fuegia Basket—were now aboard the Beagle, or gathered in Plymouth ready to join the ship. FitzRoy listed them as follows:
Darwin did not bring aboard a servant—that would have made seventy-four men—but at first used one of the ship’s boys, Henry Fuller, to help him organize and prepare specimens collected ashore. Later, he employed seventeen-year-old Syms Covington as his full-time assistant, co-opting him from the ship’s crew and paying him £60 per year. Covington became Darwin’s all-purpose assistant, secretary, shooter and co-collector throughout the voyage, and remained in his employment ashore in England until 1839. He was rarely mentioned by Darwin, as servants dressing and feeding their employers and secretaries mailing their letters seldom are, but Covington made significant contributions to Darwin’s work during and after the voyage. He is one in a long line of friends and employees whose work and interest became the foundation for Darwin’s studies and eventual reputation.
On November 23, filled to her newly raised decks with stores and food—“not one inch of room is lost, the hold would contain scarcely another bag of bread,” wrote Darwin—the Beagle left the dock at Devonport and sailed a mile to Barnet Pool near the entrance to Plymouth harbor. There she anchored to await sailing weather, preferably northeasterly winds to blow her down the Channel and out into the Atlantic. But this was weeks in coming. November passed, and through most of December southwesterly gales blew up the Channel, making departure impossible. The heavily laden Beagle rolled and pitched in her anchorage, giving Darwin concerns about seasickness. At first, he felt well.
December 4th…In the morning the ship rolled a good deal, but I did not feel uncomfortable; this gives me great hope of escaping seasickness.
But his hopes were soon dashed.
Monday 5th It was a tolerably clear morning & sights were obtained, so we are now ready for our long delayed moment of starting.—it has however blown a heavy gale from the South ever since midday, & perhaps we shall not be able to leave the Harbour. The vessel had a good deal of motion & I was as nearly as possible made sick….
Sailing was postponed. Darwin went ashore to dine with his brother Erasmus, who had come down to Plymouth to see him off. He spent the night at an inn rather than return to the ship heaving at anchor. He went aboard the next morning, prepared to leave, but again the weather prevented sailing, and Darwin, overcome by seasickness, returned ashore. For the next few days, as the Beagle pitched and rolled in her weatherbound anchorage, Darwin alternately worked at arranging his gear in the poop cabin, and fled ashore when queasiness compelled him. He and Erasmus took walks on Mount Edgcombe, overlooking Plymouth, talked and ate together, assuaging Darwin’s apprehensions and dread of seasickness.
On December 10 the weather appeared settled at last and the Beagle weighed anchors and sailed at 10 A.M. But as soon as the ship was past Plymouth’s breakwater, Darwin became sick and took to his hammock. In the evening a strong gale began to blow from the southwest—directly on the ship’s nose—forcing it to labor to windward. In a modern yacht, beating down the English Channel toward the open sea, such conditions are vile: the boat will lurch and pound against every oncoming wave like a four-wheel-drive vehicle bouncing over sand dunes. The Beagle, heavily laden and unable to point close to the wind, would have lifted, plunged, and rolled sickeningly in the short steep seas whipped up over the shallow waters of the Channel. It was a cruel baptism for Darwin. “I suffered most dreadfully,” he wrote, “such a night I never passed, on every side nothing but misery.”
The Beagle could make no headway against such wind and weather. Rather than exhausting and demoralizing his crew to no purpose so early, FitzRoy turned the ship about and she rolled back downwind to Plymouth, anchoring again in Barnet Pool. Darwin immediately fled ashore with seaman Musters, “a fellow companion in misery,” for a long walk.
More weeks passed, with the Beagle bottled up in her anchorage. FitzRoy could only bide his time in frustration, watching the skies and the weather. Darwin, until now so admiring of his captain in his journal and letters home, got a first look at his capricious temper. Accompanying FitzRoy in Plymouth one day, Darwin reported that
…he was extremely angry with a dealer in crockery who refused to exchange some article purchased in his shop: the Captain asked the man the price of a very expensive set of china and said “I should have purchased this if you had not been so disobliging.” As I knew that the cabin was amply stocked with crockery, I doubted whether he had any such intention; and I must have shown my doubts in my face, for I said not a word. After leaving the shop he looked at me, saying You do not believe what I have said, and I was forced to own that it was so.
For all his authority, dazzling skill, and mastery of his ship and men, FitzRoy was still only twenty-six years old, a young, imperious, seldom challenged or questioned aristocrat accustomed to getting his way, and this was a new view of him for the amiable Darwin. In the face of physical adversity, FitzRoy was uncowed, resourceful, and brave. But when he was thwarted in any personal way, a bratty petulance broke through his cool demeanor, and a darker side of his character took over. It might be a brief possession, and FitzRoy’s natural grace and charm could quickly dispel it, but it came from a deep reservoir he would never escape.
The Beagle’s crew also grew bored and fractious during the long enforced delay. The ship was still anchored in Barnet Pool on Christmas Day, which brought Darwin some insight into the character of the English seaman.
The whole of it has been given up to revelry, at present there is not a sober man in the ship: King is obliged to perform the duty of sentry, the last sentinel came staggering below declaring he would no longer stand on duty, whereupon he is now in irons…. Wherever they may be, they claim Christmas day for themselves, & this they exclusively give up to drunkedness—that sole & never failing pleasure to which a sailor always looks forward to.
The longed-for break in the weather came the very next day, December 26, and the ship might have sailed except that most of the crew were either drunk or missing ashore. “The ship has been all day in state of anarchy,” wrote Darwin. A number of the drunkards were chained in the hold, while AWOL crew members were rounded up ashore.
But the good weather held. The Beagle, under command of her master, Edward Chaffers, weighed anchors again at 11 A.M. on December 27. FitzRoy and Darwin celebrated the departure by lunching ashore in a tavern with Lieutenant Bartholomew Sulivan as the Beagle tacked out of Plymouth into the Channel. They ate mutton chops and drank champagne and joined the ship by boat outside the breakwater at 2 P.M. Immediately all sails were set and filled with a fair breeze. The Beagle scudded away down-Channel at 8 knots.
Darwin, perhaps buoyed by the excitement of the long-awaited departure, and views from the deck of England’s green coastline fast slipping away off the starboard beam, felt fine through the afternoon and evening.
The great voyage, of such unimagined consequence, was begun.