EXPORTS SUC4GESTI0NS. 



263 



water, no longer necessary, to the proportion of cargo that 

 might be stowed in its place. 



Local circumstances, such as the relative position of the 

 land, the set of the tides and currents, the prevailing winds, 

 and the accessibility of Port William or Berkeley Sound, con- 

 tribute to make the easternmost part of the Falklands safer 

 and more easy to approach than almost any place that I am 

 acquainted with. 



With the supply of shipping, and the establishment of a fre- 

 quented free port in view, as the first source of prosperity, colo- 

 nists should augment the number of animals, birds, and vege- 

 tables, which they see thrive so well there, and take little thought 

 about corn, except for home consumption (unless indeed oats 

 should be found to grow well). They should assiduously 

 increase their stock of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry, make 

 butter and cheese, rear calves, and breed horses ; they should 

 salt meat and fish; bring wood and lime from Tierra del Fuego 

 and Patagonia, and turn their thoughts to supplying ships with 

 water, fuel (perhaps dried peat), and provisions, in the quickest 

 and cheapest manner. Hides, pig-skins, goat-skins, sheep-skins, 

 wool, foxes' fur, rabbit-skins, bird-skins and down, horns, 

 salt meat, salt butter, cheese, potash, orchilla weed, potatoes, 

 salt-fish, seal-skins, seal-oil, whale-oil, and whale-bone, v/ould 

 form no indifferent return cargo for vessels carrying there 

 implements of husbandry, stores of various kinds, flour and 

 biscuit, clothing, lumber, furniture, crockery-ware, glass, cut- 

 lery, and household utensils. North American vessels, laden 

 with flour or lumber, might make very profitable voyages. 



I have always thought the Falklands an admirable place for 

 a penal establishment, a thorough convict colony. A healthy, 

 temperate climate, far removed from civilized countries, and 

 (if used for such a purpose only) incapable of being injured 

 by the presence of bad characters, as our mixed settlements 

 have been — fully supplied with necessaries, yet without any 

 luxuries — sufficiently extensive to maintain a large population, 

 though small enough to be kept under the strictest martial 

 law, and inspected every where, by water as well as by land— 



