Pacific Science (1998), vol. 52, no. 4: 287-293 © 1998 by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved "That Extensive Enterprise": HMS Herald's North Pacific Survey, 1845-1851 1 ABSTRACT: Despite its enormous scope, the survey of HMS Herald, like most British scientific voyages after the time of Captain Cook, is little known. This article's discussion of naturalist Berthold Seemann's accounts of the voy­ age challenges the impression, still common in some naval history circles, that there is a difference between scientific expeditions and other naval activities (that is, between science and politics). The article considers evidence ofimperial aesthetics in Seemann's responses to landscape and notes connections between the collection of scientific data and the interests of British commercial and po­ litical expansion. Examination of Seemann's racial views shows that, just as he viewed landscape and natural resources with an imperial eye, so he judged other peoples by his own standards of achievement and "improvability." THE PACIFIC SURVEY voyages of the Herald, north to assist the search for Sir John like most British voyages after the time of Franklin's missing expedition in the Arctic. Captain Cook, are little known. A recent Pandora returned to Britain in 1849, but the study by Andrew David has examined the Herald was out for 6 years, finally returning hydrographic significance of the Herald's in 1851. South Pacific expedition in the 1850s and Although this article focuses on the sur­ 1860s (David 1995), but there is no overview vey's natural history, the Herald expedition of the northern survey in print; it is that ex­ had a wider significance that should be noted pedition that I discuss in this paper. Two first. Even by the 1840s, a half-century after ships were involved-the 26-gun frigate Cook and Vancouver, much of the Pacific HMS Herald under Captain Henry Kellett, region remained uncharted. The North and the six-gun barque HMS Pandora, com­ Pacific whale fishery and the sea otter fur manded by Lieutenant Commander James trade between the northwest coast and China Wood. The survey had an enormous scope: had drawn attention to the area's economic the Hydrographer of the Navy, Francis importance since the 1790s (Steven 1983, Beaufort, invited Kellett "to complete the Mackay 1985). The North West Company's West Coast of America from Guayaquil up operations had been moving westward from to the Arctic Ocean. Are you in the mind to the Canadas, taking advantage of the Anglo­ accept of that extensive enterprise?" (Hydro­ American war to found a base at Ft. Van­ graphic Office Archives, Taunton, u.K., couver on the Columbia River in 1813. Wars Letter Book Series 12, Beaufort to Kellett, 4 of independence in South and Central Amer­ November 1844). The expedition left Britain ica had drawn the Royal Navy into closer in 1845 to survey the Falkland Islands and involvement throughout the region, and then proceeded along the west coast of South British support for the revolutionaries had America and north to the coast of what is secured the use of a number of important now British Columbia, making three detours harbors. The focus moved steadily toward the Pacific, as reflected in the shift from the old "Brazils" or "South America" station, based at Rio or Buenos Aires, to the new I Manuscript accepted 15 January 1998. 2 Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Pacific Station, founded in 1837, with its Studies, London, United Kingdom. headquarters at Valparaiso on the Chilean 287 288 PACIFIC SCIENCE, Volume 52, October 1998 coast (Graham and Humphreys 1962, Gough late in 1847, also through Hooker's patron­ 1971 ). age. Thus, although Seemann wrote both The Royal Navy's Hydrographic Office the Botany and the Narrative of the voyage, knew the importance of the Pacific region he was not actually present at many of the and had dispatched a number of survey events he described. This explains some of vessels there in the early nineteenth century, the oddities of his account, which was pre­ notably HMS Blossom, under the command pared from various journals and correspon­ of Captain F. W. Beechey, in 1825-1828. dence loaned to him by some of Herald's of­ Beechey was commissioned to lead another ficers, as well as his own diaries. This article Pacific survey in 1836 with HMS Sulphur and explores some of those different voices, espe­ Starling. Illness forced him to return to Brit­ cially with regard to the ethnography of the ain, and in his absence Lieutenant Henry expedition. Kellett took command of Starling. Overall Only brief comments are needed about the command of the expedition passed to Cap­ zoology of the voyage. The Zoology of the tain Edward Belcher in 1837. Farther north, Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald" was edited by there had been Russian surveys of the Bering British zoologist Edward Forbes, but was Strait area under the Estonian captain Otto written by Sir John Richardson, the famous von Kotzebue in 1816. But probably the Arctic explorer and scientist, and it is not most famous surveyor in the eastern Pacific, what it claims to be. Rather than a zoology and the one whose writings had the most in­ of the whole survey, it is exclusively a study fluence on the Herald's officers, was Captain of the "fossils" (as they were known then) Robert Fitzroy. HMS Beagle's work in South taken from the Eschscholtz ice cliffs of Kot­ America and the Galapagos Islands during zebue Sound near Bering Strait in the Arctic. 1835 was then legendary, and naturalist These were mostly the remains of prehistoric Charles Darwin's role had not yet eclipsed mammoth, ox, and deer. The volume was that of his captain. written solely as a contribution to the em­ Herald's naturalist, at least its final one, erging science of paleontology; the Kotzebue was the Hanoverian botanist Berthold See­ Sound ice cliffs were a phenomenon un­ mann, and he was assured prominence when related to the usual stratigraphy that allowed the task of writing up the voyage narrative scientists to gauge the age of fossils on fell to him after the Herald's return to Britain Charles Lyell's scale. Richardson suggested in 1851. Seemann, who was still relatively that the absence of human bones or artifacts unknown at that time, had not been the first meant "that the drift era must have been an­ choice for the naturalist's post; that had fallen tecedent to the appearance of man upon to the young botanist Thomas Edmondston earth" or at least to human colonization of from the Shetland Islands, a protege of Sir the Arctic (Forbes 1854:2). He also argued William Hooker, director of the Royal Bota­ for an indigenous origin of the remains nic Gardens at Kew. Just before sailing in the (rather than drift), which meant that these Herald, Edmondston had been appointed were American versions of the prehistoric professor of botany at Anderson College, animals already found frozen in northern Glasgow. "Hurrah! for Natural History," he Europe. He chose to gloss over the issue of wrote to a friend. "Who says it is a bad pro­ extinction, which was a controversial issue fession!" (Edmondston 1868: 235). Edmond­ at the time-difficult to reconcile with the ston was obviously a young man of great Bible. promise, but he was killed in a tragic accident In addition to describing the natural his­ in 1846 during the Herald's survey of the tory of Herald's survey in this paper, I chal­ Ecuador coast; a loaded rifle left by accident lenge the impression, still common in some in the bottom of one of the ship's boats naval history circles, that there is a clear dif­ went off, killing him instantly. He was only ference between scientific expeditions and nineteen. other naval activities (that is, between science Berthold Seemann joined the expedition and politics). Barry Gough, who dominates HMS Herald's North Pacific Survey-SAMsoN 289 the study of the ninteenth-century Royal ment, elegance, luxuriance, and retirement: Navy in the North Pacific, sees a distinction there are so many feelings connected with between eighteenth-century voyages of dis­ trees, that it cannot but influence one in be­ covery, which he regards as mainly scientific, holding for so many leagues the vast forests and the politically motivated Victorian naval with which the Pacific Ocean is skirted" operations (Gough 1971: xiv). Gough is in­ (Seemann 1853: vol. 1, xi, 78-79). Seemann terested in the story of maritime empire; thus was well aware that he was imposing Euro­ any voyage that seems to be merely scientific pean associations on a foreign landscape and holds little interest for him. My work, on clear about wishing that he could remake the other hand, emphasizes the difference be­ what he saw to imitate Europe. He made tween modern concepts of scientific objec­ particularly ominous observations about the tivity and neutrality, and nineteenth-century rain forests of the Isthmus and northern perceptions of "truthfulness" and "fact" in South America. He hoped that the Cali­ voyage narratives. Men like Seemann felt fornian and Australian gold rushes would duty-bound to present their observations in bring colonization and intensive agriculture a way that would serve Britain's imperial in their wake, and that land clearance would interests. In this was their truthfulness and "improve" the climate of these areas. He honor as chroniclers, allowing Seemann to noted that the seasons at Rio de Janeiro used declare that "Fact is the object I have aimed to be similar to those of Panama "but since at throughout the following pages, on the the axe was laid on the dense forests sur­ strict adherence to which will rest their sole rounding the city, the climate has become recommendation" (Seemann 1853: vol.