with
those whom I have left behind, any measure taken for their relief will
be useless. As for myself and my companion, we expect nothing but
death.

I will hasten to the material part of my narrative, with the relation
only of so much of the beginning as may serve for our identification.

On the 14th of October, 1852, we sailed from Boston in the brig
"Hopewell," Captain Campbell, bound for the islands of the South
Pacific Ocean. We carried a cargo of general merchandise, with the
purpose of trading with the natives; but we desired also to find some
suitable island which we might take possession of in the name of the
United States and settle upon for our permanent home. With this end in
view, we had formed a company and bought the brig, so that it might
remain our property and be used as a means of communication between us
and the civilized world. These facts and many others are so familiar to
our friends in Boston, that I deem it wholly unnecessary to set them
forth in fuller detail. The names of all our passengers and crew stand
upon record in Boston, and are not needed to be written here for ampler
identification.

No ill-fortune assailed us until we arrived in the neighborhood of the
Falkland Islands. Cape Horn wore its ugliest aspect (for the brig was a
slow sailer, and the Antarctic summer was well gone before we had
encountered bad weather),--an unusual thing, Captain Campbell assured
us; from that time forward we had a series of misfortunes, which ended
finally, after two or three months, in a fearful gale, which not only
cost some of the crew their lives, but dismasted our vessel. The storm
continued, and, the brig being wholly at the mercy of the wind and the
sea, we saw that she must founder. We therefore took to the boats with
what provisions and other necessary things we could stow away. With no
land in sight, and in the midst of a boiling sea, which appeared every
moment to be on the eve of swamping us, we bent to our oars and headed
for the northwest. It is hardly necessary to say that we had lost our
reckoning; but, after a manner, we made out that we were nearly in
longitude 136.30 west, and about upon the Tropic of Capricorn. This
would have made our situation about a hundred and seventy miles from a
number of small islands lying to the eastward of the one hundred and
fortieth meridian. The prospect was discouraging, as there was hardly a
sound person in the boats to pull an oar, so badly had the