158 THE AKTARCTIC VOYAGE : PERSONAL 
The movements of the exploring ships, the irregularity of 
the post carried by sailing vessels, the occasional vagaries of 
the Admiralty letter-bags going from one naval station to 
another, made the receipt of news from home spasmodic. For 
instance, he tells his sister on May 26, 1842, ' My latest news 
from home is March 29, 1841, and that is in answer to a nearly 
two year old one of mine from Hobarton." Such news was 
often anticipated by the English newspapers found at ports of 
call; the * Athenaeum ' in particular giving news of persons and 
events in scientific circles. To this he owed his first intimation 
of * the first and last piece of good tidings that has greeted me 
about our own family.' This was the appointment of Sir 
William to Kew at Lady Day, 1841. He found a copy of the 
jom-nal for March 23 with the news when he was at Sydney 
early in August. His father's letter about the appointment, 
written six days later, reached him at the Bay of Islands on 
November 23. On the strength of it he persuaded Captain 
Ross to relax the strict rule of the Expedition and let him 
send Sir William a box of plants he had collected. 
Hope deferred was at length satisfied ; a month before 
hearing the news he had written : 
What to think about Kew I do not know ; the ministers 
have put you off so very often that they may do so longer. 
Next to my pgor little Mary, that subject lies nearest my 
heart, and most sincerely do I hope you may not be after all 
disappointed. To live near your friends is now your chief 
- aim and must be essential to your comfort ; and to be able 
to raise Kew to the rank of a tolerably good national estab- 
lishment would be the most honourable service a Botanist 
could render his country, besides being the most pleasant 
one you could set your mind to. 
Kew, he had felt strongly from the 'moment of his father's 
appointment as Director, must eventually become a National 
establishment. He is amused to find from a newspaper of 1842 
that Lord Lincoln, head of the ofiicial department that ruled 
Kew, opposed Sir William's scheme of opening of the gardens 
to the public on the ground that they were ' the only gardens 
near town to which Her Majesty could repair for exercise,' 
