VOYAGES OF THE * BEAGLE. 3 



wholly uninteresting. The reader will be surprised 

 to learn that she belongs to that much-abused class, 

 the " 10-gun brigs," — coffins, as they are not unfre- 

 quently designated in the service ; notwithstanding 

 which, she has proved herself, under every possible 

 variety of trial, in all kinds of weather, an excel- 

 lent sea boat. She was built at Woolwich in 1819, 

 and her first exploit was the novel and unprece- 

 dented one of passing through old London bridge — 

 (the first rigged man-of-war that had ever floated 

 so high upon the waters of the Thames) — in 

 order to salute at the coronation of King George 

 the Fourth. Towards the close of the year 1825 

 she was first commissioned by Commander Pringle 

 Stokes,* as second officer of the expedition which 

 sailed from Plymouth on the 22nd of May, 1826, 

 under the command of Captain Philip Parker King; 

 an account of which voyage, published by Captain R. 

 Fitz-Roy, — who ultimately succeeded to the vacancy 

 occasioned by the lamented death of Captain Stokes, 

 and who subsequently commanded the ' Beagle,' 

 during her second solitary, but most interesting 

 expedition, — has added to the well earned reputa- 

 tion of the seaman, the more enduring laurels which 

 literature and science can alone supply. 



Though painful recollections surround the sub- 

 ject, it would be hardly possible to offer an account 

 of the earlier history of the Beagle, and yet make no 

 * Not related to the author. 



