There was no more certain sign of the Fuegians’ anglicization than their clothing. The first thing FitzRoy had done after kidnapping them, even before feeding them, was to dress them in English clothing. This, he assured the Admiralty in his first communication concerning his protégés, made them “very happy.” Now, two years on, they walked about the ship in their fancy duds and gazed shoreward from the decks, the oddest of tourists. There was no cruising or yachting gear for passengers, no white ducks or striped blazers. Though they may have been given oiled canvas seacoats to permit them to get some air on deck during inclement weather, the Fuegians would not have dressed as seamen. York Minster and Jemmy Button, in earnest collusion with their captors over their transformation, dressed in the de rigueur fashion of early-nineteenth-century gentlemen: aboard ship and ashore, they wore topcoats with tails, double-breasted waistcoats with lapels, high-collared shirts with cravats, long trousers, and leather boots.
