[[1]]*1
H.M.S. "Erebus". Cawa-Cawa[?] River.
Bay of Islands. New Zealand.
August 25th 1841
My dear Maria
Your letter tho' a harbinger of very bad news was a very welcome one to me, as it is
now very long since I had heard from you. The accounts of Mary are very bad but I
hope & fully expect that the now past Jersey Summer has done wonders for her, & I
have sent her a little picture of Madeira, as being a place she expressed much
interest in, in one of her letters to me. The precarious state of my G[ran]dfather's
health also keeps me in a state of anxiety, for tho' the change in his health was only
to be expected, & as far as he is concerned, to be hoped for, it is a bitter thing to feel
that one so very dear is lying on a bed of suffering from which he never will arise.
Much as I could hope that he might be spared only to recognise me on my return, it
is not for the best that it should be so, selfish motives could only induce me to wish
for such an event. Poor Elizabeth too who was always so lively, & fond of exercise
has lately been an invalid, which however will not last long I sincerely trust.
Since commencing this letter I have had the unexpected gratification of receiving the
news from home which contains my father's new appointment, & tho' it also
[[2]] bears the sorrowful tidings that Jersey is not bettering my dear little Mary's
health, there is much to be thankful for in hearing how resigned she is. It is useless
however my troubling you with my sorrows, especially as I half hope & half fear that
yours are long ere this past. It has often been a hard job for me for 6 months past to
do my duty in the station assigned to me here, when my mind wanders far from the
pursuits, to which I am most attached & engaged in; the bell striking the hours is my
only monitor to warn one of the flight of time, & to tell one that the last has been
spent in useless regrets. Homesick I never was, but on the contrary feel perhaps too
confident in my own abilities to get on in the world, these dispensations however
damp one's zeal sadly, & render the complainer callous to the opinion of the world;
however, I am bound in duty to allow no selfish motives to interfere materially with
the public service in which I am engaged; now or never is the time, & I must embark
again in a few days for a 6 months cruize[sic] in unknown latitudes to perform my
accustomed avocations with as much alacrity as ever, hoping for the best when the
far off next news will arrive, & in the meantime conduct myself so as to give
satisfaction to the many saddened hearts who not only want but expect it from me.
Many thanks for your customary gift of a letter, you so regularly write to me that I
begin to take it for
[[3]] granted that I shall recognise your handwriting by every opportunity. I am
delighted to hear that the little Willielma*2 gets on so well; under your care there is no
fear of her wanting anything; doubtless by my return, she will be a precocious child,
as most children are at first. You sometimes say you wonder where I am, just now
October 20th Your worthy brother is sitting solus in the Capt[ain']s cabin, or at least
with a huge sulky Tom Cat (for such has the charming Phantome turned out) for my
only companion; it is just 8 bells or 12 at night, & I hear nothing but the ripple of the
Tide, the quartermaster walking the deck & 16 Chronometers ticking about me
(reminding me of Mr Corbett's shop No. 16 Stockwell) you would not believe that 60
people are asleep within a few feet of my table; a snorer is soon cured on board ship
& if you were here to act a in La Somnambula, as of old, I do not know what would
happen, tho' you might depend on a speedy cure being effected. On one side I have
a portrait of the Queen surmounting an Autograph of Washington, & viz a vis a large
looking glass; on the rudder case Capt[ain] Parry is staring me in the face with a
Telescope over his arm, & alongside him are a picture of Christ raising Peter in the
Sea, & a view of Capt[ain] Weddel's Ships bearing up in 74--15 South lat among
Ice-bergs & Penguins. I turn my back to a furious portrait of Sir Jno Franklin (the
mildest of men) rampant, guardant,
[[4]] looking like some fire eater boarding a vessel of superior force, on whose left is
a corresponding mezzotint to the former Scriptural picture of our Saviour quelling the
storm. Scattered about in sublime confusion are books, papers, nautical Almanacks,
all sorts of instruments with meter[?] terminations, parcels of plants, charts, bottles of
animals, birds dead & skinned, shells & Insects; cocked[?] hats, swords, & all sorts
of wearing apparel. One large Table opposite to two of the Stern windows, the two
on the Larboard or left hand side, is mine by right from the Captain, in whose
absence I maintain it by might; for which purpose I invariably leave on it my
microscope which no one dares touch, & a large bottle for preserving plants in,
pencil, papers, & note book. Then I have a nice drawer to put my things in, & room
on the shelves for any books of reference which require to be at hand. -When writing the previous lines to you last night, I was keeping watch for one of my
messmates, which in harbour consists of keeping an hourly Meteorological Table;
looking out for any rows upon deck, receiving the Captain if he comes on board &c,
occasionally making a little noise yourself to show you are not asleep. I was
distracted from writing by the Quarter Master coming to report 12 o'clock, which is
generally my time for turning in, however seeing Tom in a very good humour I
crossed the cabin to stroke him down a little, & saw lying opposite the Captain's
[[5]] chair an Athenaeum, which I commenced reading, little thinking how many
associations it would call up. In the first place (I always begin Athenaeums at the
end) there was a list of H[?] Bohn's books, with an announcement of his Catalogue,
price £1.1. & at the end of all that a Copy of Greville's Cryptogamic Flora for £8
sold[?]. Now Mc Leay[?] begged of me if I saw a copy advertised to get it for him at
any price, & he would pay for it; & so I beg of you to ask my father to secure it, & pay
for it out of the bill I send home, & to send it to Mc Leay with the bookseller's bill, I
never thought of asking him how he intended to refund the money, or who was his
agent in Town, but am willing to trust to Providence to oblige so kind & true a friend
as his father has been to every friend of our parents. Do remember this dear Maria.
Then there was an account of a cylinder bursting[?] in a laboratory, while some
students were solidifying carbonic acid gass[sic], an experiment Thomson & I often
performed, filling the cylinder with the pressure of more atmosphere than the victims
in the present case had, & a cast Iron one too, & further the first time I saw Capt[ain]
Ross was when the experiment was conducted by Mr Golams[?] in Newcastle -- a
little further on I came to a letter from Capt[ain] Franklin about our expedition, & after
that to an extract from "Dodd's Thoughtage", with Papa's pedigree, & how that he is
"the father of a certain youth who is accompanying
[[6]] Capt[ain] Ross in the Antarctic Expedition", which is to me a great spur to future
exertion, especially as I must attend more to Nat[ural] History in some respects than
to Botany, not because I like the other branches better, but because my not
attending to them now would be throwing golden opportunities away; & the
information I shall now gain will always be useful, tho' it will never be added to, nor
kept up. You see my dear Maria that this letter has been written piece meal, & now
more than a month has elapsed since writing the previous lines an interval which has
brought Dr Sinclair & H.M.S. "Favorite" back to the Bay of Islands. With Dr S. I have
had several very nice excursions, & I like my new companion very much indeed.
Tomorrow Tuesday the 23d of November we sail for the Chatham Isl[an]ds thence to
the Ice again. By a ship which came in the other day, & sailed during my absence,
there went home a box of plants directed to the Admiralty which will I hope be
forwarded to my father, had I known of the opportunity I should have written a short
note at the same time. How they will go from Sydney I know not, I suppose by the
first good ship that sails. Young Colenso who is almost the only person I know here
had just sailed in the Missionary Schooner for the East Cape, & before leaving he
sent me some [1 word illeg.] portes[sic] & Claret, accompanied by a most kind note,
he is one of
[[7]] the most amiable & worthy men I ever met with. I shall now commence writing to
my father & mother so I must break off.
Your most affect[ionate] brother. Jos. D. Hooker
P.S. I have a very good collection of the shells of this place for you amounting to
nearly 100 species, none however of much beauty, but some curious.
[[8]] *3E[Lizabeth]. H[ooker]. arrived safe after a pleasant journey. W[illiam].
J[ackson]. H[ooker]. is not worse, but rather better -- more particulars on Mond[a]y -M.H.
*4Dawson
Turner Esq[uire].
Bank
G[rea]t Yarmouth
Norfolk
ENDNOTES
1. This letter is a 19th Century manuscript copy written in a hand not that of the
original author, Joseph Dalton Hooker. The copy was probably made by Hooker’s
mother or sister so that a version could be circulated amongst family and friends.
2. Willielma Campbell née Hooker (1840--1879). Joseph Hooker's niece. Daughter of
Isabella Whitehead Hooker and Joseph's older brother William Dawson Hooker. Her
father died in Jamaica before she was born. She married James Campbell in 1862,
they had seven children before her death in 1879 giving birth to a still born child.
3. The wording from here to "M.H." is written on the left hand side of the central part
of the page. This wording appears to have been added by the copier of the letter
who signs themselves M.H., probably Maria Hooker, Joseph Hooker's sister and the
recipient of the original letter.
4. This address of the recipient of this copy, Dawson Turner, is written vertically
upwards in the middle of the page as the letter would originally have been folded in
such a way that it formed its own 'envelope'.
Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study
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