John Lort Stokes E T I M S

A reprint from American Scientist the magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society This reprint is provided for personal and noncommercial use. For any other use, please send a request to Permissions, American Scientist, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27709, U.S.A., or by electronic mail to [email protected]. ©Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society and other rightsholders H.M.S. Beagle, 1820–1870 “She belongs to that much-abused class, the ‘10-gun brigs’ ... notwithstanding which; she has proved herself, ... in all kinds of weather, an excellent sea boat.” n Sc a ie ic n r —John Lort Stokes e t i m s classic t A • Keith Stewart Thomson 1975 • “After having been twice driven back by idea of the ship, of the conditions un- A bark has three masts: fore, main, and heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty’s der which Darwin and others worked, mizzen. The first two carry square ship Beagle, a ten- gun brig, under the com- and, thereby, a further measure of their sails, whereas the mizzenmast carries mand of Captain FitzRoy, R.N., sailed from immense achievements. only a driver. The word sloop is used Devonport on the 27th of December 1831.” rather loosely to describe any small The Origin of the Beagle man- of-war of fewer than 20 guns. ith these words, Charles In order to present a full description The Royal Navy, during the peri- Darwin began his ac- of the Beagle, we must first give brief od of “transition” in the first half of count of one of the most attention to the general nature of naval the 19th century, changed from fleets important voyages made ships of the time—their design and the dominated by many large ships of the Win the 19th century. More than 100 purposes for which they were used. line—three-deckers or more, armed years later we know a great deal about the voyage and about Charles Darwin, and we have learned quite a lot about Editors’ note: American Scientist occasionally revisits articles from the maga- Robert FitzRoy. But about the Beagle zine’s archive to tie present research to its history. To complement this issue’s herself—a tiny vessel only 90 feet long articles on evolution (“On the Trail of the First Placental Mammal,” page 190) which made three enormously impor- and conservation (“War and Redemption in Gorongosa,” page 214), we are tant surveying voyages between 1826 reprinting a classic investigation into the story of the H.M.S. Beagle, the ship and 1843—very little is known. that carried Charles Darwin on his famous voyage to the Galapagos Islands. I first began to read about the Beagle This article is also the first written for American Scientist by Keith Stewart Thom- in the course of my work as an evo- son. He followed this endeavor with a nearly 30-year run as a regular contributor to lutionary biologist, and as I learned American Scientist’s Marginalia column. Many of Keith’s columns, including several more and more, I was struck by the on Darwin, are available on American Scientist’s website. Keith recently retired, and fact that so many statements about we take this opportunity to highlight his glowing career at the magazine. her, in works on Darwin and others Thomson recounts: “I had been delving into Beagle history ever since chancing connected with the second voyage, upon the lost original plans for the ship at the National Maritime Museum in Lon- contradict each other. For example, don. My essay touches upon all my favorite subjects: biology, evolution, Darwin, in one book we read that the Beagle exploration, and the history of science. I hope we now know much more about the was sold to Japan and used as a train- conditions under which Darwin and his shipmates labored and also have captured ing ship. In another we find that she at least a little of the romance of discovery, whether in the field or the library.” ended her days at Southend—or was it Since the article’s publication in 1975 several new pieces of scholarship regarding Paglesham—in Essex. She was nomi- the Beagle have come to light. Keith published a full book about the ship in 1995. nally a 10-gun brig but for most of her Studies in the early 2000s may have found the Beagle’s resting place after it was career was rigged as a three-masted scrapped, along with some of her repurposed timbers incorporated into nearby bark. Why the conversion? Authorities onshore buildings. And beginning in 2012, the Nao Victoria Museum in Chile began cannot even agree when the change construction of a full-size replica of the ship. That replica is now nearing completion. was made. No plans of the Beagle were Keith Stewart Thomson is Executive Officer of the American Philosophical So- known to exist, and there are few con- ciety and professor emeritus of natural history at the University of Oxford. Email: temporary illustrations. [email protected]. The aim of this article is to bring together for the first time some important information about the Beagle, A vessel is defined as a ship if it is mainly with long guns—to those in together with an outline of her career fully square rigged (with transverse- which the smaller brigs and frigates and some notes on her sailing charac- ly set square sails) on three masts predominated. The reasons were mani- teristics. I hope that these pages will or more. A brig has two masts, both fold. First, there was a change in the provide students of Darwin and of square-rigged but with a fore-and-aft pattern of naval warfare during the 19th-century exploration with a clearer driver on the main (after) mast as well. wars with France, when the major Brit- 218 American Scientist, Volume 102 © 2014 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Reproduction with permission only. Contact [email protected]. One hundred and seven 10-gun brigs were built between 1808 and 1838; the Beagle, laid down in June 1818 and com- pleted on May 11, 1820, was the 41st. They were small vessels of 235 tons “burthen” (in the old-fashioned sense of the builder’s measurement of dis- placement), 90 feet long overall, and 73 feet, 7 inches at the keel. The maxi- mum breadth was 24 feet, 6 inches, and the depth of the hold was 11 feet. Little Figure 1. Sail plan of a typical 10-gun brig. This is possibly how the Beagle’s sails were workhorse ships built to an inferior de- Figure 2. Sail plan for the Beagle rigged as a rigged before she was converted to a bark. sign, they were scorned by those who bark. Compare with Figure 1. sailed in greater ships and detested— ish vessels were tied up blockading the or at best viewed with an affectionate she did gain one mark of fame. In July French fleets in their home ports. Prin- alarm—by those who sailed in them. 1820, Great Britain celebrated the coro- cipally, however, the emergence of the The proponents of the “big ship” nation of King George IV, and among smaller “cruisers” can be traced to the school, to whom the change was anath- the festivities was a review of naval ves- invention of a new lightweight gun, the ema, felt that “the substitution of car- sels on the Thames. The spanking new carronade, which allowed even small ronades for long guns” increased “the Beagle was included in this great parade vessels to carry an immense firepower numerical strength of a man-of-war ... and, in passing up the river, became the deliverable at short range. The carron- at the expense of her fighting efficien- first man-of-war to pass fully rigged ade is named for the town of Carron, cy.” William James, in his Naval History, under the (old) London Bridge. It is a Scotland, where they were manufac- flatly states that “as little judgment has minor distinction, and certainly no one tured. They were light in weight, with been employed in modelling the hull would then have guessed that the name a short broad barrel. A heavy charge as in establishing the armament.” Al- of this little brig would be known the was carried, but the effective range was though the new small brigs gave good world over 150 years later. short, less than 100 yards. Even a small service in the wars with France, they For many years it was thought that sloop could now take on a large mer- were considered too frail to be risked the original plans of the Beagle no lon- chantman or a moderate -sized man-of- against the powerful American frigates ger existed—they had either been lost war or privateer. during the War of 1812. or destroyed before the present vast col- With the enthusiastic endorsement In the Pax Brittanica that followed lection of ships’ drafts was assembled of the carronade by Lord Melville (First 1815, policy centered around an open at the National Maritime Museum in Lord of the Admiralty, 1808–1827; 1828– world trade which was principally London. One’s disappointment was, of 1830), new classes of smallish sloops- seaborne. To permit safe commerce, course, somewhat lessened by the fact of-war, armed almost exclusively with the Royal Navy set about putting that the Beagle never sailed as a brig. carronades, quickly came into exis- down piracy and slaving and tackled But unfortunately, the plans for her tence. They were cheap to build, easy to the mammoth task of accurately chart- conversion to a bark are also missing.

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