144 



KOTES ON BRAZIL. 



presented us with an ample supply of provisions for that evening ; and, the 

 next morning but one having obtained a bullock from the shore, we 

 weighed anchor, and steered upwards, in company with a vessel from Belfast. 



We arrived in the outer-roads of Buenos Ayres on Christmas-day ; 

 here the wickedness of our ship's company involved us in new and severer 

 misfortunes. The boat was sent on shore, with the Captain and a 

 Supercargo, and liaving at hand no other ballast, some pigs of lead were 

 thrown into her ; this the men stole, and suffered the boat to drift away. 

 They then proceeded to do us more serious injury, by deposing that 

 we had clandestinely landed goods at Maldonado, that we had arms 

 concealed on board, and had repeatedly threatened to take their lives. 

 These charges w^ere privately received, no opportunity was afforded us 

 for repelling them, and it was known by the authorities of the city that 

 the two Men of War had left the river ; we were accordingly put under 

 arrest, strictly confined on board, and detained for six weeks. Our 

 accusers alone were permitted to go on shore, until they were detected in 

 smuggling goods plundered from the ship. On Sylva were found 

 fifteen pairs of silk stockings, when he was about, one day, to step into 

 the boat. And, afterward, on examining the chests of others of the crew, 

 in the presence of Spanish Officers, it was ascertained that thefts had 

 been committed, to a great extent, by means of a passage, which the 

 men had made through the bulk-head forward. 



Such was the character of our ship's company, by many degrees the 

 worst with which I had ever sailed. The fate of some of them, at least, 

 was conformable to the specimen of their qualities, which they had pre- 

 sented to us. The Captain I afterward saw in prison at Rio Grande do 

 Sul, having been apprehended there, at the instance of a gentleman from 

 St. Paul's, for robbery and breach of trust. And Sylva, I believe, was 

 hanged in London, for the murder of a person in Wapping, having 

 made a voyage to China, after the commission of the crime, and been 

 seized at Macao. Less would have been said of them", and the rest of 

 our crew, if the chief traits of character, here exhibited, had not been 

 too generally applicable to Brazilian seamen. They are timid, insubor- 

 dinate, dishonest, and malicious. 



