Oct.] CAPTAIN BARNARD. 55 



in sailing for the west part of the Falklands, a vessel should en- 

 deavour to make lat. 51° 36' S., and long. 61° 50' W. ; then, by steering 

 due east, she will make New Island right ahead. To enter the harbour 

 on the eastern side, it is advisable to pass round two small islands 

 lying about a mile and a half to the north of New Island ; then haul 

 up to the southward, and pass within half a mile of its north-east ex- 

 tremity, after which you will leave a small bay on the starboard 

 quarter, and then open ship harbour, within which you may anchor in 

 from six to three fathoms of water, muddy ground. Ships, however, 

 may lie in perfect safety in ten fathoms of water, with Peat Island 

 bearing W.S.W., distant three-fourths of a mile, clay bottom. Cape 

 Percival is on the south of New Island, and there is a passage between 

 them. 



In entering Falkland Sound from the south-west, there are three 

 islands on the starboard side, one of which, called Eagle Island, has 

 been the scene of a drama unparalleled in the annals of navigation 

 for ingratitude, treachery, and perfidy. I allude to the treatment re- 

 ceived by Captain Charles H. Barnard, of New- York, from the officers 

 and crew of an English ship, whom he had previously rescued from 

 all the horrors of shipwreck on a desolate island. In return for his 

 kind offices, they treacherously seized his vessel and made their 

 escape, leaving him and a part of his crew to endure all the privations 

 and sufferings from which he had nobly preserved them ! Captain 

 Barnard's narrative of this horrible transaction is before the public, and 

 ought to be in the hands of every reader. For nearly two years he 

 was compelled to drag out a miserable existence on an uninhabited 

 island, in as high a south latitude as Kamschatka is in the north. 



This unnatural act of perfidy was perpetrated in the year 1813, 

 some time in the month of April, while Captain Barnard was engaged 

 in a sealing voyage at the Falkland Islands, in a brig from New-York, 

 called the Nanina. On the 9th of February previous, the British ship 

 Isabella, on her passage from Port Jackson, New South Wales, to 

 London, had been wrecked on Eagle Island, a place where navigators 

 seldom touch. From that time until they were relieved by the noble 

 exertions of Captain Barnard, the officers, passengers, and crew of 

 the Isabella remained on this uninhabited and inhospitable island, with 

 no prospect before them but an uncertain period of precarious subsist- 

 ence, to terminate in a fearful death from cold or famine, or both 

 combined. There were several females among them to share the 

 same fate. 



Captain B. had laid his brig up in Barnard's Harbour, and was in 

 search of seal at Fox Bay, opposite Eagle Island, in a small shallop 

 built for that purpose, when his attention was attracted by a rising 

 smoke on the other side the strait. Suspecting the real cause of this 

 unusual appearance, and prompted by his characteristic benevolence 

 of heart, he immediately crossed Falkland Sound in his shallop for the 

 purpose of relieving the sufferers, whoever they might prove to be. 

 His errand of mercy was successful ; and though they proved to be 

 subjects of England, with whom our country was then at war, the 



