ver,
means were being taken for providing a mission for Natal, and Christian
teachers were already there, while he regarded his own personal exertions
as the only hope for the desolate natives of Cape Horn. So he only sent
a letter and a present to the man, urging him to attach himself to a
mission-station, and then turned again to his unwearied labour in the
Patagonian and Fuegian cause. His little Society found it impossible to
raise means for the purchase of a brigantine, and he therefore limited
his plans to the equipment of two launches and two smaller boats. He
would store in these provisions for six months, and take a crew of
Cornish fishermen, used to the stormy Irish Sea. As to the funds, a lady
at Cheltenham gave 700_l._, he himself 300_l._ The boats were purchased,
three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, and Bryant, all of good
character, volunteered from the same village; Joseph Erwin, the
carpenter, who had been with him before, begged to go with him again,
because, he said, "being with Captain Gardiner was like a heaven upon
earth; he was such a man of prayer." One catechist was Richard Williams,
a surgeon; the other John Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary
of the Young Men's Association in London; and these seven persons, with
their two launches, the _Pioneer_ and the _Speedwell_, were embarked on
board the _Ocean Queen_, and sailed from Liverpool on the 7th of
September, 1850. They carried with them six months' provisions, and the
committee were to send the same quantity out in due time, but they failed
to find a ship that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton
Island, and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be
thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to Tierra del
Fuego for wood.

Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, were landed
on Picton Island, and the _Ocean Queen_ pursued her way. Time passed on,
and no more was heard of them. The Governor of the Falklands had twice
made arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first
master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great anxiety, on
the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in October 1851, a vessel
on purpose to search for them. At the same time, the _Dido_, Captain
William Morshead, had been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the
isles of Cape Horn and carry relief to the missionaries.

On the 21st of October, in a lonely