S02 



CORPORAL WILLIAMS. 



Dec. 1832. 



On the 12th, Lieutenant Wickham sailed for Blanco Bay, 

 to deliver some letters from me (which I had received from 

 Buenos Ayres) to the commandant Rodriguez. 



13th. Off the banks in Anegada Bay there was too much sea 

 (during a S.W. gale) for the Liebre to keep on her course 

 any longer, having run as long as was prudent, and already 

 shipped several seas. When hove-to, under a balance-reefed 

 foresail, with the tiller unshipped, she was dry and easy, and 

 lay about five points from the wind. 



Mr. Wickham arrived at Argentina on the 16th, and left it 

 on the following day. In sailing out of Blanco Bay, along the 

 south shore, while it was dark, the Liebre grounded frequently ; 

 but her crew got overboard, and hauled her over the banks as 

 often as she was stopped by them, and at midnight she was at 

 sea. A south-east gale on the 18th drove her into the Colo- 

 rado, where Lieutenant Wickham found a strong outset, owing 

 to the ' freshes,' even during the flood-tide. 



On the 22d, the Liebre entered the river again, and anchored 

 near Carmen. 



At daylight on the 24th, Corporal Williams was missed, 

 supposed to have fallen overboard in the night, while asleep. 

 He slept on deck sometimes, when tormented by musquitoes ; 

 and as the Liebre's weather-cloth rail was but a few inches above 

 the deck, he might possibly have rolled overboard into the 

 stream, which would immediately have carried him away. His 

 body was found, about three miles down the river, at sun-set 

 the next evening (Christmas day). The governor (though a 

 Roman catholic) allowed the burial to take place in the con- 

 secrated ground of the church, and the curate himself was 

 present. 



While the Liebre was absent, Mr. Stokes, in the Paz, sur- 

 veyed many miles of the river, as well as the bar. No vessel 

 drawing more than eleven feet water can enter without much 

 danger : if at a favourable time any person should be induced 

 to risk crossing the bar with a ship of greater draught, he 

 should bear in mind that it is much more difficult to get to sea 

 than it is to enter, because wind which is fair for approach- 



