CHAPTEiB VIII 



\ 



T .^TURN TO ENGLAND : AND VISIT TO PARIS 



The ships reached Woolwich on St^pt ember 7 and were paid 

 off on the 23rd, after a commission of foMor years and five months. 

 Captain Boss had landed at Folkestone'. and hurried to London. 

 For some days the Hookers had to be bontent with his news 

 that all was well ; Joseph, as a junior officer, could not get 

 away from his ship, and it was not till the evening of the 9th 

 that he reached home on a week's leave * iu high health and 

 spirits.' * He is not stouter,' writes Sir Wilf-iam to Dawson 

 Turner, ' than when he left us, and very un.altered — more 

 manly — broader in the shoulder. He is badly oS for clothes, 

 and we had to assist him from my wardrobe to ena.ble him to 

 go to church yesterday.' * 



Soon he settled down to a six months' spell of hajd work, 

 enjoying everything at home and about Kew, and wo-rking at 

 his father's side on his plants, ' when not impeded by frequent 

 calls to London and numerous engagements ' ; working, as 

 his mother puts it, ' like a dragon, like a grandson of my dear 

 Father's, and always happy when so employed.' ■ 



First came the Antarctic Flora. But though Boss had 

 made formal application for a grant towards pubHcatior.i, the 

 ofi&cial wheels moved with discouraging slowness. 



I have no heart [he exclaims to Bentham, Februar}^ 10, 

 1844] to do much at my Antarctic plants, having l:»een 

 five years more or less working at them, and my prospt^cts 

 of publishing in a nice form are waning very fast indeed. 

 I most heartily wish that I had at first published a rou'gh 



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