AT HASLAR 39 



written to Edinburgh to endeavour to have that difficulty 

 obviated, and I have asked the Duke of Bedford ^ for a letter 

 to Sir Wm. Burnett 2 (the head of the Medical Navy Board), 

 and I have written to Sir John Barrow ^ and Capt. Ross : 

 and I trust there will be no difficulties in the way. The 

 poor boy is dehghted, and I trust it may be in every way for 

 his good! 



Joseph joined him in London ; on the 18th he reports 

 that the various friends whose aid he had invoked had duly 

 exerted their influence, and Sir W. Burnett 



promised to take Joseph into the Navy as soon as he had 

 completed his curriculum [the end of April] and, if I wished, 

 to give him an appointment at Haslar Hospital and a charge 

 in the Museum there with £120 a year. Then he would be 

 employed until the Antarctic Expedition was determined 

 upon, for there are some difficulties in the way of it, and 

 it is doubtful if it will sail before next year. 



Joseph has quite won Brown's * heart by bringing him 



1 John, sixth Duke of Bedford, 1766-1839, was an enthusiastic naturalist, 

 devoting himself to botany, agriculture, and the fine arts after his retirement 

 from politics in 1807. 



2 Sir William Burnett (1779-1861). After studying medicine at Edinburgh, 

 and seeing much active service as naval surgeon, he had a brilliant career as 

 Inspector of Naval Hospitals. In 1822, Lord Melville appointed him to the 

 Victualling Board, as colleague to Dr. Weir, the chief medical officer of the 

 navy. Then becoming Physician General of the Navy, he introduced valuable 

 reforms, among other things improving the position of assistant surgeons. 



' Sir John Barrow (1764-1848, Bart. 1835), bom of peasant stock in Cumber- 

 land, was distinguished from boyhood by his mathematical gift and his 

 adventurous spirit. Thanks to the appreciation of Sir George Staunton, he 

 accompanied Lord Macartney both to China and the Cape, and from 1804r-45 

 was second Secretary to the Admiralty. He was specially interested in 

 Arctic discovery, having had stern experience of the ice as a youngster in a 

 Greenland whaler. A link with the Hookers was his friendship with Dr. 

 Richardson, and the fact that he had studied botany at Kew Gardens before 

 going to the Cape in order to appreciate the natural history of South Africa. 



* Robert Brown (1773-1858) was called by Humboldt ' facile Botani- 

 corum princeps, Britanniae gloria et omamentum.' Beginning as surgeon- 

 mate to the Fifeshire regiment of Fencibles, he made a large collection of 

 plants in Ireland where his regiment was quartered, and through his discovery 

 of a rare moss, first made acquaintance with Sir Joseph BanJ^, by whom he 

 was afterwards ofiered the post of Naturalist to the Investigator under Captain 

 Flinders, 1801-5. The resulting Prodromits Florae Novae Hollandiae was a 

 valuable piece of systematic work, and his researches into the reproduction 

 of plants, and especially in the morphology and interrelation of the higher 

 plants, were marked by important discoveries, which carried him as far as 

 the conditions of the time allowed. With these, and the discovery of the 

 nucleus of the vegetable cell, he took a long step towards the development of 



I 



