Henry Le Vesconte: you probably should fight him, but don’t because it means fighting Fitzjames and his cheetah. You might survive the cheetah but you won’t survive Fitzjames.
Lt. Hodgson: fight him if you really have nothing better to do. He might try to distract you with another lengthy story from his childhood and it will probably work. So it’s your call.
CharlesDesVoeux: will probably run away before you can land a punch. Fight him if you catch him.
Dr. McDonald: now why would you want to fight this nice and cheerful gentleman who can - and will - fight back, unless trapped in a tent with a frenzied mob behind him? Don’t.
Dr. Peddie: first of all, good luck finding him. Also there is so little known about him that it’s hard to make an educated guess. Seems chill though, so don’t fight.
Sgt. Tozer: a really bad idea. He is a Royal Marine, now what the bloody hell do you think that means? Exactly, he’ll shoot you on the spot. Even if you manage to corner him, watch out for Armitage sneaking up on you with a gun. And if you somehow manage to deck Tozer, you’ll have to deal with the rest of the Marines. Fight with extreme caution, better yet – don’t fight at all.
PrivateHeather: the dude is in a coma?? Why would you fight him??? Also if you try anything, the Marines are after you. Good luck with that.
Mr.Diggle: if you’re a cook, it is mandatory for you to fight him, and he will fight back (watch out for knives, pans and rock-hard biscuits). Otherwise don’t fight him, or your next supper might contain something worse than lead. That is, if you get a supper at all.
Mr. Wall:seeMr. Diggle.
Thomas Armitage: fight him unless he has a gun. Watch out for Tozer, just in case.
ThomasHartnell:no. He’ll be confused and distressed and will probably just let you punch him. You’re better than this. Don’t fight.
John Morfin: end his suffering by getting him some quality painkillers, not by fighting him.
Magnus Manson:seeDavid Young.
Thomas Evans:seeDavid Young.
Sir John Ross: this man survived Blanky. Let that sink in and stay away.
Sir James Ross: first of all, why? Also fighting him means fighting Sir John Ross, the whole Admiralty and Crozier. Stay away.
Neptune, JackoandFagin the cat:I will find you and you will rue the day you were born.
Born 14 June, 1813! The secret of his birth date was found in the archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, which included a copy of the following addition to his diary kept the National Maritime Museum Greenwich (transcribed in alt text):
In celebration of Henry Le Vesconte’s 209th birthday, today on the 14th of June, here is a classic blog post from Franklin scholar Russell Potter, revealing the identity of the book in Lieutenant Le Vesconte’s hand in his 1845 daguerreotype portrait: Captain Marryat’s Code of Signals.
I appreciate that Professor Potter is an English professor first, and he knows Marryat, even bringing up his antihero Frank Mildmay:
Although the book itself is unremarkable, its author, Marryat, brings a rich resonance to the image. Marryat was an acquantance of Dickens and a prodigious novelist, who more or less established the classic narrative arc of the “sea story” in which some likely lad runs away to sea, faces a series of challenges and adventures, and eventually rises to the rank of Captain. The earliest of these, The Naval Officer, or Scenes in the Life and Adventures of Frank Mildmay (1829), was said to be partly autobiographical. Who knows but that some of the younger lads aboard Franklin’s ships might have been inspired by such tales?
On a personal level, this was one of the first times I heard Marryat’s name! I mentally filed him away as The Code of Signals Guy (sounds pretty technical and dry); and only after other nautical writers praised Marryat did I try his novels. (Which obviously made quite an impression on me).
James Fitzjames and Harry Goodsir’s younger brother Robert Goodsir are also Marryat readers associated with the Franklin expedition.
Og Dundy and Fairholme trying out a rubberboat,and a midshipman who’s looking for that bastard who’s always playing the flute
A scene with Lieutenants Le Vesconte and Fairholme based on James Fitzjames’ letters to Elizabeth Coningham:
Calm day, sea glassy smooth, cloudy weather, no sun. After breakfast I went on board the Terror, to see Captain Crozier about my “Fox” observations (Fox being a dipping-needle invented by him). Fairholme and Le Vesconte followed in the India-rubber boat, which was being tried when you came to Woolwich.
Born 14 June, 1813! The secret of his birth date was found in the archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, which included a copy of the following addition to his diary kept at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich (transcribed in alt text):
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Noted for his talent in map-making and surveying—as noted in this poston@fabtet’s wonderful James Fitzjames research blog—there are a few quotes pertaining to his activities on the Franklin expedition.
In his published letters to Elizabeth Coningham, Fitzjames referred to spending the day with Le Vesconte on 6 July, 1845, with HMS ErebusandTerror off the Greenland coast:
Every man nearly on shore, running about for a sort of holiday, getting eider ducks’ eggs &c.; curious mosses and plants being collected, as also shells. Le Vesconte and I on the island since six in the morning, surveying. It is very satisfactory to me that he takes to surveying, as I said he would. Sir John is much pleased with him.
— originally published in Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle in 1852, full transcript available on another excellent research blog, Arctonauts.
(N.B. while these published letters spell Henry’s name as ‘Levescomte’, that’s the error of the transcriber/compositor, not Fitzjames himself, who consistently spelled his friend’s name correctly in his original letters).
Sir John Franklin referenced Henry Le Vesconte in his last letter to his wife, reproduced in The Life of Sir John Franklin R.N. by H.D. Traill (Google Books):
I accompanied Mr. Le Vesconte to the top of the highest land, that we might procure a view of the groups of islands and rocks in this neighbourhood, and take bearings for placing them on the chart.
You may have seen a copy of Henry Le Vesconte’s drawing of Whale Fish Island, Greenland; this picture of the original sketch was sent to me by Russell Potter.
If you look closely, there is a figure on a rock at left with what looks like a theodolite—a self-portrait of Le Vesconte surveying the terrain?
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