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and hostile taunts of those very men who had of late expressed 

 themselves our friends and well-wishers. Desirous of expediting 

 our several affairs as much as possible, we separated, and I was not 

 able to rejoin my companions until eight in the evening. I found 

 them in great anxiety for my safety ; the Spaniards had fired a feu- 

 de-joie from the citadel and fort St, Joseph, and were now preparing 

 for bonfires * and illuminations, and my friends, though they did 

 their utmost to avoid the riotous crowds that paraded the town, had 

 several narrow escapes from being plundered and stripped by the 

 soldiery. We all got safely on board by ten o'clock, congratulating 

 each other on having happily avoided the dangers to which our rash 

 confidence in the amicable disposition of the inhabitants had ex- 

 posed us. 



On the 11th of September we sailed from the Rio de la Plata ; the 

 vessels bound for the Cape of Good Hope were then nearly out of 

 sight, and as we beheld them we felt a melancholy but proud de- 

 light in reflecting that, after such grievous and unexpected reverses, 

 our brave countrymen were once more within their wide undisputed 

 empire, the ocean. After a voyage, in which nothing worth relation 

 occurred, we made the island of St. Catherine's on the 29th, at sun- 

 rise, and were delighted with a grand and pictureque view of its 

 conical rocks rising abruptly from the sea, embellished with the 

 lofty mountains of Brazil, covered with wood in the back-ground. 

 This sublime scenery interested us the more from the contrast it 

 formed with the extensive and woodless plains of Buenos Ayres. 

 This island is situated in 27 and 29*^ south latitude, and is separated 

 from the continent by a strait, in some places not half a league wide. 



* One mode which they adopted for displaying their triumph over their late conquerors 

 was singular enough ; they collected all the sign boards belonging to the English warehouses 

 and shops, and made a bonfire of them. A great quantity of these boards were from the 

 pulperias, the masters of which had been obliged to have on them the following inscription, 

 painted in large characters, " Licensed to sell liquor." 



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