CHARLES DARWIN. 93 



answered about slaves, angrily remarking, as Mr. Darwin 

 has it, " that, as I doubted his word, we could not live 

 any longer together ! " "I thought," adds Mr. Darwin 

 on this, " I should have been compelled to leave the ship ; 

 but as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, I 

 was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all 

 the gun-room officers to mess with them." The doubting of 

 Fitz-Roy 's word simply lay in Darwin's asking him, when 

 he (Fitz-Roy) told him (Darwin) how a slaveholder had 

 asked his slaves whether they were happy and whether 

 they wished to be free " if he thought that the answer 

 of slaves in the presence of their master was worth 

 anything ? " One does not wonder here that even 

 the captain of a man-of-war, on coming to see his own 

 childishness, presently sent and apologised. The sweet- 

 tempered, courteous, concessive Charles Darwin kept 

 always on the best of terms with Fitz-Roy ; still it is 

 evident that, in his intrepidity of principle, the young 

 naturalist must have had many tussles in regard to 

 politics with his equally young commander. The former 

 writes Henslow once from Rio : " The captain does every- 

 thing in his power to assist me and we get on very well, 

 but I thank my better fortune he has not made me a rene- 

 gade to Whig principles. I would not be a Tory, if it was 

 merely on account of their cold hearts about that scandal 

 to Christian nations slavery " (i. 237). To another friend, 

 C. Whitley, he writes, fully two years later, from Valpar- 

 aiso : " If your opinions are the same as formerly, you would 

 agree most admirably with Captain Fitz-Roy the object 



of his most devout abhorrence is one of the d d 



scientific Whigs. I have often said to him, I once had a 

 very good friend, an out-and-out Tory, and we managed 

 to get on very well together. But he is very much in- 

 clined to doubt if ever I really was so much honoured ! " 

 The morning after his arrival at home on the termination 



