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

1831. AT ST. James's. 13 of hei- own bonnets, which slie put upon the giiTs head. Her Majesty then put one of her rings upon the girPs finger, and gave her a sum of money to buy an outfit of clothes when she should leave England to i-eturn to her own country. I must now revert to matters more immediately connected with the Beagle's second voyage. My own official duties, relating to the survey, were com- pleted in March 1831 ; when my late commanding officer, Captain King, addressed a letter to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty expressive of his approbation of the part I had taken, under his direction, and recommending me to their Lordships. * From various conversations which I had with Captain King, during the earlier period of my service under him, I had been led to suppose that the survey of the southern coasts of South America would be continued ; and to some ship, ordered upon such a service, I had looked for an opportunity of restoring the Fueaians to their native land. Finding, however, to my great disappointment, that an entire change had taken place in the views of the Lords of the Admiralty, and that there was no intention to prosecute the survey, I naturally became anxious about the Fuegians and, in June, having no hopes of a man-of-war being sent to Tierra del Fuego, and feeling too much bound to these natives to trust them in any other kind of vessel, unless with myself — because of the risk that would attend their being landed anywhere, excepting on the territories of their own tribes — I made an agreementf with the owner of a small merchant-vessel, the John of London, to carry me and five other persons to such places in South America as I wished to visit, and eventually to land me at Valparaiso. My arrangements were all made, and James Bennett, who was to accompany me, had already purchased a number of goats, with Avhich I purposed stocking some of the islands of Tierra del Fuego — when a kind uncle, to whom I mentioned -t3^ Appendix. t Ibid.