AT HASLAK 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 ^ (the head of the Medical Navy Board), 
and I have written to Sir Joha Barrow ^ and Capt. Boss : 
and I trust there will be no difficulties in the way. The 
poor boy is delighted, 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. 
2 Sir John Barrow (1764-1848, Bart. 1835), born 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, ho 
accompanied Lord Macartney both to China and the Cape, and from 1804-45 
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 ornamentum.' 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 discover}'' 
of a rare moss, first made acquaintance with Sir Joseph Banks, by whom he 
was afterwards offered the post of Naturalist to the Investigator under Captain 
Flinders, 1801-5. The resulting Prodromus 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 
