These necessary regulations being established, and the Trial sloop completed, the squadron weighed on Friday, the 27th of February, at seven in the morning, and stood to sea.

From our departure from St. Julian to the 4th of March we had little wind, with thick, hazy weather and some rain.  On the 4th of March we were in sight of Cape Virgin Mary,* and not more than six or seven leagues distant from it.  The afternoon of this day was very bright and clear, with small breezes of wind, inclinable to a calm; and most of the captains took the opportunity of this favourable weather to pay a visit to the Commodore.

(Note.  Cape de las Virgenes, the south-eastern extremity of Patagonia at the entrance to the straits of Magellan.)

We here found, what was constantly verified by all our observations in these high latitudes,* that fair weather was always of an exceeding short duration, and that when it was remarkably fine it was a certain presage of a succeeding storm; for the calm and sunshine of our afternoon ended in a most turbulent night, the wind freshening from the south-west as the night came on, and increasing its violence continually till nine in the morning the next day, when it blew so hard that we were obliged to bring to with the squadron, and to continue under a reefed mizzen till eleven at night.  Towards midnight, the wind abating, we made sail again; and steering south, we discovered in the morning for the first time the land called Tierra del Fuego.  This indeed afforded us but a very uncomfortable prospect, it appearing of a stupendous height, covered everywhere with snow.  As we intended to pass through Straits le Maire next day, we lay to at night that we might not over shoot them, and took this opportunity to prepare ourselves for the tempestuous climate we were soon to be engaged in; with which view we employed ourselves good part of the night in bending an entire new suit of sails to the yards.  At four the next morning, being the 7th of March, we made sail, and at eight saw the land, and soon after we began to open the Straits.

THE EVE OF DISASTER.

About ten o’clock, the Pearl and the Trial being ordered to keep ahead of the squadron, we entered them with fair weather and a brisk gale, and were hurried through by the rapidity of the tide in about two hours, though they are between seven and eight leagues in length.  As these Straits are often considered as the boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and as we presumed we had nothing now before us but an open sea till we arrived on those opulent coasts where all our hopes and wishes centred, we could not help flattering ourselves that the greatest difficulty of our passage was now at an end, and that our most sanguine dreams were upon the point of being realised, and hence we indulged our imaginations in those romantic schemes which the fancied possession of the Chilean gold and Peruvian silver might be conceived