They cornered Josiah the Second after dinner and showed him how it was the chance of a lifetime--this trip on H.M.S. the "Beagle"! Charles wasn't adapted for a clergyman, anyway; he wanted to be a ship-captain, a traveler, a discoverer, a scientist, an author like Sir John Mandeville, or something else. Josiah the Second had but to speak the word and Doctor Darwin would be silenced, and the recommendation of so great a man as Josiah Wedgwood would secure the place.
Josiah the Second laughed--then he looked sober. He agreed with the proposition--it was the chance of a lifetime. He would go back home with Charles and put the Doctor straight. And he did.
And on the personal endorsement of Josiah Wedgwood and Professor Henslow, Charles Robert Darwin was duly booked as Volunteer Naturalist in Her Majesty's service.
Captain Fitz-Roy of the "Beagle" liked Charles Darwin until he began to look him over with a very professional eye. Then he declared his nose was too large and was not rightly shaped; besides, he was too tall for his weight: outside of these points the Volunteer would answer. On talking with young Darwin further, the Captain liked him better, and he waived all imperfections, although no promise was made that they would be remedied. In fact, Captain Fitz-Roy liked Charles so well that he invited him to share his own cabin and mess with him. The sailors, on seeing this, touched respectful forefingers to their caps and began addressing the Volunteer as "Sir."
The "Beagle" sailed on December Twenty-seven, Eighteen Hundred Thirty-one, and it was fully four years and ten months before Charles Darwin saw England again. The trip decided the business of Darwin for the rest of his life, and thereby an epoch was worked in the upward and onward march of the race.
Captain Fitz-Roy of the British Navy was but twenty-three years old. He was a draftsman, a geographer, a mathematician and a navigator. He had sailed around the world as a plain tar, and taken his kicks and cuffs with good grace. At the Portsmouth Naval School he had won a gold medal for proficiency in study, and another medal had been given him for heroism in leaping from a sailing-ship into the sea to save a drowning sailor.