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Cape Virgins was passed soon after sunset, and we proceeded
on our course with rapidity.
The timely supply of guanaco meat had certainly checked the
scurvy, for we had no new cases added to the number of the
sick, now amounting to twenty. The Beagle was not so sickly;
but, during the last cruise, upwards of forty cases, principally
pulmonic, had occurred, and several were not yet recovered. On
the passage, a man fell overboard from the Beagle, at night,
and was droivned.
In latitude 45° S. we were delayed three days, by northerly
winds and damp foggy weather, after which a fresh S.W. gale
carried us into the River Plata. Having obtained good chronometer
sights in the afternoon, we steered on through the
night, intending to pass to the westward of the Archimedes
Shoal; which would have been rather a rash step, had we not
been weR assured of the correctness of our chronometrical
reckoning. At this time Brazil and Buenos Ayres were at war,
and some of the blockading squadron of the former were
generally to be met with in the mouth of the river; but we
saw none, untR half-past two in the morning, when several
vessels were observed at anchor to leeward, and we were soon
close to a squadron of brigs and schooners, whose number was
evident by a confusion of lights, rockets, and musketry, on
hoard every vessel. I bore down to pass within hail of the
nearest, which proved to be the Commodore’s, the Marahao of
eighteen guns; and on approaching, explained who and what
we were; but they were so confused, I could not even make
myself understood. The breeze, at the time, had fallen so light,
that, fearing to get foul of the brig, the ship was hove up in
the wind, and the anchor ordered to be let go. Unluckily a
stopper was foul, and before another bower could drop, the
Brazilians had fired several muskets into us, happily without
doing any mischief; and threatened us, if we did not immediately
anchor, with a broadside, which, in their utter confusion,
I am astonished they did not fire. Having anchored, and
lowered the topsaRs, I sent a boat to inform the Brazilian who
we were, and to request, that in consequence of the number of
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