1831. 



AT ST. James's. 



13 



of her own bonnets, which she put upon the girl's head. Her 

 Majesty then put one of her rings upon the girl's finger, 

 and gave her a sum of money to buy an outfit of clothes when 

 she should leave England to return to her own country. 



I must now revert to matters more immediately connected 

 with the Beagle's second voyage. 



My own official duties, relating to the survey, were com- 

 pleted in March 1831 ; when my late commanding officer, 

 Captain King, addressed a letter to the Lords Commissioners 

 of the Admiralty expressive of his approbation of the part I 

 had taken, under his direction, and recommending me to their 

 Lordships.* 



From various conversations which I had with Captain King, 

 during the earlier period of my service under him, I had been 

 led to suppose that the survey of the southern coasts of South 

 America would be continued ; and to some ship, ordered upon 

 such a service, I had looked for an opportunity of restoring 

 the Fuegians to their native land. 



Finding, however, to my great disappointment, that an 

 entire change had taken place in the views of the Lords of 

 the Admiralty, and that there was no intention to prosecute 

 the survey, I naturally became anxious about the Fuegians ; 

 and, in June, having no hopes of a man-of-war being sent to 

 Tierra del Fuego, and feeling too much bound to these 

 natives to trust them in any other kind of vessel, unless with 

 myself — because of the risk that would attend their being 

 landed anywhere, excepting on the territories of their own 

 tribes — I made an agreement -|- with the owner of a small 

 merchant-vessel, the John of London, to carry me and five 

 other persons to such places in South America as I wished to 

 visit, and eventually to land me at Valparaiso. 



My arrangements were all made, and James Bennett, who 

 was to accompany me, had already purchased a number of 

 goats, with which I purposed stocking some of the islands of 

 Tierra del Fuego — when a kind uncle, to whom I mentioned 



* Appendix. 



t Ibid. 



