[[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 electronic image(s) of this document where possible.