Your Excellency -
Embracing this the first and only opportunity, to announce the painful history of events which have followed in distressing and rapid succession, from our leaving the waters of La Plata, up to the present moment, impreses upon me a task that requires an able pen and a mind less torn by sufferings, and less occupied by the continued combination of factious and designing villainy:- but painful as the task is, and arduous, my duty demands it. I shall naught extenuate, nor aught set down in malice, in giving as concise a view of our past, and continued misfortunes, and present situations as circumstances will permit, reserving a more minute relation to a personal communication, if ever I am to have that honor.
A very few days after our departure from the river, we had to encounter a series of violent gales, and contrary winds, which caused the ship to leak in such a manner as to damage much of our stores, and to discover the want of that character amongst the principal officers, required to constitute the necessary energy and union, to ensure success in the important object of our enterprize. Added to which was the distressing situation of my second Major Adams a worthy and meritorious officer, who was never able to be brought on deck after lifting our anchor before the City, until he expired on the 26th day of May. The First Lieutenant, Mr. Joseph Hughes with a constitution worn out with debauchery, and a mind with depravity, was rather an instrument to facilitate that factious spirit which began to respire, than to afford the indispensable aid to subordination, that his station required. Nor was the inexperience of the 2nd Lieutenant, or the visionary and credulous nature of his character, fitted to correct the train of evils which daily arose, and his own weakness and ignorance led him to become, more, the inactive accessory than the vigilant opposer, to the grounds of succeeding evils. The 3d, 4th and 5th Lieutenants destitute of the principles of duty seemed to have contented themselves in maintaining a neutrality, and without using their exertions to check a current of evils, which in the sequel would not only destroy the harmony, but the grand object of the expedition:- and left me without a single officer to give the necessary aid, either in timely checking those growing evils, or to prevent that contagion diffusing itself thro' a number of villains who have been discovered among the crew.
At a moment when the factious disposition of officers had given vent to the evil intentions of a part of the crew, the general cause of complaint was made as to the bad sailing of the ship, her leaking, and incapacity for a successful cruize, even previous to my arrival before the port of Rio Janeiro – off which to our inexpressible regret it was discovered, that the bad quality of our water casks, had lost by leakage, the greater part of our water, and would compel an immediate abandonment of that station for the necessary supply. It was thought best to proceed to the island of Trinidad, for that purpose, as a return to the River Plata would produce ruin and delay. On our arrival at that island it was found only possible to obtain a partial and very limited supply – which required the necessary quantity for further operations, to be obtained in some situation where the casks might be landed and repaired, and the bends and bows of the ship be caulked: under such distressing and imperious circumstances, it was viewed as indispensable to pursue a track across the Equator for the Northern Hemisphere, leaving the coast of Brazil, and seek the necessary supplies of water and repairs in some one of the Cape Verd Islands for which we accordingly proceeded. In this passage the restless and factious spirit of both officers and men, discontented with the sailing of the vessel and her leaking made it a pretext to combine among various of them to protest to me against the state of the ship, and to solicit or demand my going to the United States of America direct. Such an idea in movement I opposed as unnecessary, rash, and ruinous to the concern, and dishonorable in the extreme, and was so fortunate as to quiet, if not destroy, for that moment, the intention.