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| Maria Callcott, painted by her husband Augustus Callcott, 1830s. Wikimedia Commons. |
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Maria Graham, now Lady Callcott, was so incensed by Greenough’s attacks on her veracity, that she set in print her response to be ‘circulated without delay’. The pamphlet, 'Letter to the President and Members of the Geological Society in answer to certain observations contained in Mr Greenough's Anniversary Address of 1834', was issued in the summer of 1834.
Taking his criticisms point by point, Graham argued that her observations were not confirmed by any naval officer as, at the time of the earthquake, “there was not a ship of war, belonging either to England, the United States, or France, on the coast.” Adding, “Captain King, whose testimony, had he been present would have been uncontrovertible [sic], was not on the coast till several years afterwards, and therefore could have had no knowledge of the state of the coast, or the exact soundings as they existed before.”
Far from being fraught with high colouring, ignorance and terror, Graham stated that she did not and could not give way to personal fear as she was looking after an invalid relation, and “did not lose her presence of mind for a single moment; nor her power of thinking and acting for others.” As for the supposed discrepancies in time, Graham commented that “she had her watch, a very good one, made by Grimaldi and Johnson” in her hand at the time of the first shock.
Her final riposte was that she “would have been happy to have furnished any explanation of what Mr Greenough thinks [are the] doubtful parts of her statements, had he thought it worth while to have made any application to her. And as her relation and friend, Mr Glennie, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, no longer an invalid, now resides with his wife in Kensington, Mr Greenough might have had, what he appears to desire—some Officer’s corroboration.”
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| Letter from William Broderip to William Buckland, 21 July 1834. Kindly lent by Dr Peter Riches, FGS. Click to enlarge. |
The gossipy postscript in this letter between two of the Society’s Fellows – William J Broderip (1789-1859) and William Buckland (1784-1856) – makes fun of Greenough’s predicament and quotes Graham’s witty reply. Broderip writes:
“Greenough is in a most confounded scrape with Mrs Callcott (Maria Graham) and I think he must be a good deal annoyed at having written as he has done concerning any woman – but when ‘dying woman’ [In 1831 Graham had suffered a burst blood vessel and became a permanent invalid] is added – his situation is not enviable.
“A Peace-maker to soothe her, said ‘It was Lyell, not you, that he was belabouring’. Her answer was not bad, ‘Suppose it to be so;- he had no right to do it through my petticoats’ – You have of course, seen her letter…”
The issue led to a flurry of papers on the subject of land elevation, all were rejected for publication. Graham’s observations were to be confirmed by a naturalist, indeed the most famous naturalist of his age. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) described a similar land elevation after another earthquake in Chile during the voyage of the Beagle in 1836.
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