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HISTORY
The 10-gun brig HMS BEAGLE
was launched in 1820. She never saw active service. Her career
as a survey ship began in 1826 with a voyage to Patagonia and
Tierra del Fuego under the command of Captain Parker King. She
returned to Plymouth in 1830. At the end of 1831 she again
sailed for South America under the command of Captain Robert
Fitz Roy.
After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales,
Her Majesty's ship BEAGLE, a ten-gun brig, under the command of
Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of
December, 1831. The object of the expedition was to complete the
survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under
Captain King in 1826 to 1830, -- to survey the shores of Chile,
Peru, and of some islands in the Pacific -- and to carry a chain
of chronometrical measurements round the World.
The BEAGLE was retired from
seagoing service after her return from her third voyage. For
many years she was moored at Pagglesham on the River Roach in
Essex as a floating office and depot for the Coast Guard
Service.
Few records exist of her later career but it is probable that
she was broken up in about 1870. No part of her was saved and
not so much as a splinter survives as a memento of the Beagle.
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