das, which I named in honour of the noble Lord and the Head of the
Admiralty."

CHAPTER 14.

THE LOSS OF THE LADY NELSON.

On November 10th Captain Bremer, having carried out his duties in
accordance with the instructions that he had received from the Admiralty,
took leave of the settlement. He handed over its charge to Captain
Maurice Barlow. The Tamar then dropped into the stream, being saluted by
15 guns, which she returned. Two days afterwards she left Port Cockburn
for India in company with the Countess of Harcourt, bound for Mauritius
and England.

The Lady Nelson remained behind at Port Cockburn, partly to act as a
guardship and partly to bring to the settlement the needed stores and
supplies from the islands to the northwards. These islands, as well as
Coepang, afforded fresh meat in the form of buffalo beef, and it proved
an inestimable boon to many ships which traded in these waters. Fresh
provisions being scarce at the settlement* (* See Major Campbell's
report.) Captain Barlow sent the Lady Nelson for a cargo of buffaloes. In
February 1825, the little ship set forth on her mission, from which she
was doomed never to return. As she left Port Cockburn her Commander was
warned to avoid an island called Baba, one of the Serwatti Islands, which
was infested with pirates who were very daring and very cruel. It is
supposed that the warning was unheeded, for there the little vessel met
her end.

The schooner Stedcombe, Captain Burns (or Barnes), from England, arrived
at Melville Island when anxiety was being felt there regarding the Lady
Nelson's fate. After her stores were landed, as scurvy was increasing
among the colonists, Captain Barlow chartered the vessel on behalf of the
Government and despatched her to Timor for buffaloes: she was also
instructed to search for the missing Lady Nelson. Her captain remained at
the settlement, and the chief mate took charge of the schooner. The
Stedcombe never returned, and later it was learned that she too had been
captured by pirates, off Timor Laut, about sixty miles eastward of Baba,
where the Lady Nelson had been taken.

The Serwatti Islands form a chain which stretches from the east end of
Timor as far as Baba. When Lieutenant Kolff of the Dutch Navy visited
Baba in July 1825 the inhabitants were shy and deserted the village of
Tepa on his landing. He was convinced that a crime had been committed,
and learned that "some months previously an English brig manned b