THREE CENTURIES' PERSPECTIVES 421
FitzRoy would have chartered a boat at his own expense to re-
turn York Minster, Jemmy Button, and Fuegia Basket to their
homes. (Fitzroy's names for his charges also reek with paternalistic
derision. How would you like to be named Chrysler Building—the
secular modern American counterpart to York Minster?) But the
Admiralty, pressured by FitzRoy's powerful relatives, finally outfit-
ted the Beagle and sent FitzRoy forth again, this time with Darwin's
company. Darwin liked the three Fuegians, and his long contact in
close quarters helped to convince him that all people share a com-
mon biology, whatever their cultural disparity. Late in life, he re-
called in the Descent of Man (1871):The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans differ as much from
each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was inces-
santly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the "Beagle," with
the many little traits of character, showing how similar their minds were
to ours.FitzRoy's noble experiment ended in predictable disaster. They
docked near Jemmy Button's home, built huts for a mission station,
planted European vegetables, and landed Mr. Matthews, avatar of
Christ among the heathen, along with the three Fuegians. Matthews
lasted about two weeks. His china smashed, his vegetables trampled,
FitzRoy ordered him back to the Beagle and eventually left him in
New Zealand with his missionary brother.
FitzRoy returned a year and a month later. He met Jemmy But-
ton, who told him that York and Fuegia had robbed him of all his
clothes and tools, and left by canoe for their own nearby region.
Jemmy, meanwhile, had "reverted" completely to his former mode
of life, though he remembered some English, expressed much grati-
tude to FitzRoy, and asked the captain to take some presents to his
special friends—"a bow and quiver full of arrows to the schoolmas-
ter of Walthamstow... and two spearheads made expressly for Mr.
Darwin." In a remarkable example of stiff upper lip in the face of
adversity, FitzRoy put the best possible spin upon a personal disas-
ter. He wrote in conclusion:
Perhaps a ship-wrecked seaman may hereafter receive help and kind treat-
ment from Jemmy Button's children; prompted, as they can hardly fail to
be, by the traditions they will have heard of men of other lands; and by an
idea, however faint, of their duty to God as well as their neighbor.