44 THE ANTAECTIC VOYAGE : PEELIMINAEIES 



the Exped., but I should much more deeply regret going 

 against the advice of my friends and losing my time. 



Matters straightened themselves out, however. ' I am 

 appointed from the Admiralty as Asst. Surgeon to the 

 Erebus, and Capt. Eoss considers me the Botanist to the 

 Expedition and promises me every opportunity of collecting 

 that he can grant/ McCormick, as will be seen, proved any- 

 thing but exacting during the voyage, and indeed made friends 

 with him at once when he reached Chatham, and looked after 

 him when he met with a slight accident. 



A letter of July 13 to his father tells of another official 

 interview, the tone of which he resented and remembered 

 against the Society when it made claims on his work or the 

 disposal of his collection : 



At the same time as your letter was brought off one 

 came from Capt. Eoss calling me up to town on Tuesday to 

 attend the Commission of the Eoyal Society for the purpose 

 of giving instructions to the Botanist. Mr. Eoyle, 1 Dr. 

 Horsfall, 2 Mr. Pereira 3 and Capt. Eoss were there. They 

 gave me a long list of advices with little new in them or 

 worth reporting but an order to send seeds to the Bot. 

 Gardens in India ; you can guess who wanted this. Pereira 



1 John Forbes Royle (1799-1858). His love of natural history made him 

 throw up his prospect of a commission in the Indian army and enter the 

 Company's medical service, so that he could study Indian botany. In 1823 

 he became superintendent of the Saharunpore Gardens. He studied and 

 identified many Indian drugs, and with the aid of collectors, gathered vast 

 collections, especially of Himalayan plants, which he brought back to England 

 in 1831. In 1837 he became F.R.S. and Professor of Materia Medica at King's 

 College, London, while at the East India House he organised a department 

 relating to vegetable productions, with a technical museum. In his Illiistra- 

 tions of the Botany, <&c., of the Himalayan Mountains, 1839, he recommended 

 the introduction of the cinchona plant into India. But it was not till 1853 

 that Royle, at the invitation of the Governor-General, drew up a report on 

 the subject, which in turn was only carried out in 1860, two years after his 

 death, by Sir Clements Markham. 



2 Possibly meant for Thomas Horsfield (1773-1859), an American doctor 

 and botanist who took service in the Dutch East Indies, but finally joined the 

 English service when the Dutch Malayan colonies were temporarily taken 

 by us in 1811. In 1820 he was appointed Keeper of the E.I.C. Museum in 

 Leadenhall Street, publishing various botanical and zoological papers. 



3 Jonathan Pereira (1804-53), the great authority and lecturer of his day 

 on Materia Medica. In 1839 he had begun to publish his great book, The 

 Elements of Materia Medica, and had been appointed examiner in the subject 

 at the London University. 



