S28 EVENTS IN THE FALKLANDS. Marcll 



garrison at Port Louis, consisting of a sergeant's guard of sol- 

 diers, a subaltern, and a field officer. The men mutinied be- 

 cause their superior was thought to be unnecessarily severe, 

 and occupied them unceasingly in drill and parade, to the pre- 

 judiceof their obtaining food sufficient for health. They were 

 obliged, in consequence of his system, to live upon worse fare 

 than the settlers, because they could not go about to forage for 

 themselves ; and the result was that, after many threats, they 

 murdered him. A small armed schooner* arrived a few days 

 afterwards from Buenos Ayres, by whose officers and crew, 

 assisted by some French sailors, the principal mutineers, nine 

 in number, were taken and put into confinement on board. 

 They were afterwards carried to Buenos Ayres. 



On the S6th of August 1833, three 'gauchos' and five Tn- 

 dians-|- (the prisoners before mentioned), set upon and murdered 

 Mr. Brisbane ; Dickson, the man in charge of Vernefs store ; J 

 Simon, the capataz ; the poor German ; and another settler ; 

 after which atrocious acts they plundered the settlement and 

 drove all the cattle and horses into the interior. Only that morn- 

 ing Mr. Low, who was then living with Mr. Brisbane, left Port 

 Louis on a sealing excursion, with four men. Hardly was his 

 boat out of sight, when the deceitful villains attacked Brisbane 

 in Vernefs house: suspecting no treachery, he fell at once by the 

 knife of Antonio Rivero. Simon defended himself desperately^ 

 but was overpowered ; the others, overcome by fear, fell easy 

 victims. The rest of the settlers, consisting of thirteen men, 

 three women, and two children, remained with the murderers 

 two days, and then escaped to a small island in the Sound ; 

 where they lived on birds'* eggs and fish, till the arrival of the 

 English sealer Hopeful, § on board which was an officer of the 

 navy, || who in some measure relieved their immediate distress, 

 but could not delay to protect them from the assaults which 



* Sarandi. 



+ Antonio Rivero, J. M. Luna, M. Godo)^, — J. Brasido, M. Gonzales, 

 L. Flores, F. Salazar, M. Lattore. 



: P. 240. §Nov. 1833. 



j| Mr. Rca. The Hopeful belonged to Messrs. Enderby. 



