Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

EXPORTS SUGGESTIONS. 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, would 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