A COUNTRY DOOMED BY NATURE - A Brief History of the Circumnavigators - page 253

The uncomfortable voyage began in August 1838 and lasted
three years and ten months. The arguments and recriminations to
which it gave rise were to go on much longer. Antarctic survey was
only one aspect of the expedition's work but it loomed large in
Wilkes's mind. He was determined to cap any achievement of his
French and English rivals. For another of this turbulent man's attrib-
utes was acute xenophobia.
Like D'Urville, he sailed to the south of the Horn and reached
the pack ice surrounding the northernmost spur of the Antarctic
continent, known as Graham Land. But he was able to achieve little
and retreated for the time being to concentrate on other aspects
of the expedition's work. There were courtesy calls to be made in
various South American ports and scientific investigation in the
Tuamotu and Samoan islands. By the end of 1839 the convoy had
reached Sydney and Wilkes was ready for a fresh onslaught on the
Antarctic. His questionable activities over the next few weeks put his
name firmly upon the polar map and stirred up unpleasant contro-
versy.
Wilkes went with four ships - the Vincennes, Porpoise, Peacock
and Flying Fish - and took much the same course as D'Urville
(though without sighting his rival). He tried to keep his southbound
convoy together, a stratagem which only resulted in all the ships
travelling at the speed of the slowest, while the brief polar sailing
season slipped agonisingly by. Day after day, Wilkes fretted and
fumed if one of the vessels was lost sight of. He distributed a code
of signals to be used in foggy conditions. An officer on the Flying
Fish noted cynically in his journal, 'as we have neither bells, gong, or
horn they had as well been left out'. 9 Throughout the squadron opin-
ion was united on the reason for the commander's solicitousness:
Wilkes did not want the credit for such discoveries as might be made
to go to any of his subordinates. The other captains were, therefore,