Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually
worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could
generally detect something amiss about the ship, and was then
unsparing in his blame. He was very kind to me, but was a man
very difficult to live with on the intimate terms which
necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves in the same
cabin. We had several quarrels; for instance, early in the
voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised slavery,
which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great
slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them
whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and
all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer,
whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of
their master was worth anything? This made him excessively
angry, and he said that as I doubted his word we could not live
any longer together. I thought that I should have been compelled
to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did
quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage
his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an
invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But
after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by
sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I
would continue to live with him.

His character was in several respects one of the most noble which
I have ever known.

The voyage of the "Beagle" has been by far the most important
event in my life, and has determined my whole career; yet it
depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive