User:Kahastok/Matthew Brisbane

Note: this is an unfinished work-in-progress. You are welcome to edit this page if your sources are better than mine - please ensure that you cite everything. Or if you think you can do a better job than I can then you are welcome to make your own version - I would prefer it if you let me know in this case.

Note the existence of User:Justin A Kuntz/Brisbane, Matthew

Apart from ship names, parts in italics are my own comments. The blockquotes (which are PD because FitzRoy died in 1865) contain information that I would like to get in but am now quite sure how.

Captain Matthew Brisbane (c. 1787 - 26 August 1833) was a Scottish sealing captain who accompanied James Weddell in his voyages of exploration in the 1822-24 and who was a leading figure in the early settlement of the Falkland Islands as deputy to Luis Vernet until his murder in 1833.

Early Life

Brisbane was born in Perth in roughly 1787.

Voyages with Weddell

As Master of the Beaufoy cutter, Brisbane accompanied Weddell (in the Jane) on his voyage to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea and on 20 February 1823 reached 74º15'S, the farthest South latitude ever reached at that time. During this voyage, Brisbane charted the southern coasts of the South Orkney Islands. He returned on a sealing trip in 1824-26.

Shipwrecks

On his return, Brisbane became master of the Prince of Saxe Coburg, headed once again for the sealing grounds of the Antarctic, but was shipwrecked late that year in severe weather on Tierra del Fuego. He and his men were rescued by the HMS Beagle in March 1827 and returned to England.

At the end of 1827 he was appointed master of the Hope schooner, and left for the south once more on 5 January 1828, and was shipwrecked a second time on 22 April 1828 off South Georgia. He and his men were stranded until 7 March the following year, when Brisbane and nine men made their way 2,800 kilometres (1,700 mi) across the South Atlantic to the Río Negro (source - written 1829 - says the town of Rio Negro - could this be Viedma?) using a cutter that they had constructed, and from there to Buenos Aires, where they arrived on 2 May. There he chartered the brig Betsy with Luis Vernet, leader of the Argentine colony on the Falkland Islands, to rescue those crewmembers who he had left behind at South Georgia.

Falkland Islands

Following a third shipwreck in February 1830, this time on the East coast of Tierra del Fuego, Brisbane and his shipmates saved themselves and went directly to Port Louis on the Falkland Islands, where they arrived on 7 May. After being made deputy to Vernet, Brisbane remained on the islands, acting as governor in Vernet's absence, until the Lexington Raid of December 1831, when the USS Lexington attacked the colony, burning powder and destroying houses. Brisbane was arrested and taken to Montevideo aboard the Lexington and there released at the behest of the British consul general, Woodbine Parish. Captain Robert FitzRoy of the Beagle later reported:

"How is this?" said I, in astonishment, to Mr. Brisbane; "I thought Mr. Vernet's colony was a thriving and happy settlement. Where are the inhabitants? the place seems deserted as well as ruined." "Indeed, Sir, it was flourishing," said he, "but the Lexington ruined it: Captain Duncan's men did such harm to the houses and gardens. I was myself treated as a pirate—rowed stern foremost on board the Lexington—abused on her quarter-deck most violently by Captain Duncan—treated by him more like a wild beast than a human being—and from that time guarded as a felon, until I was released by order of Commodore Rogers." "But," I said, "where are the rest of the settlers? I see but half a dozen, of whom two are old black women; where are the gauchos who kill the cattle?" "Sir, they are all in the country. They have been so much alarmed by what has occurred, and they dread the appearance of a ship of war so much, that they keep out of the way till they know what she is going to do." I afterwards interrogated an old German, while Brisbane was out of sight, and after him a young native of Buenos Ayres, who both corroborated Brisbane's account.

Following the re-establishment of British rule, he was sent back to the islands by Vernet in 1833 to take control of the settlement from storekeeper William Dixon. When he arrived, he presented his papers to Captain FitzRoy of the Beagle, which was present on the islands at the time, and reclaimed his authority from Dixon. FitzRoy made it clear that Brisbane's instructions from Vernet were "to act as his private agent only, to look after the remains of his private property, and that they had not the slightest reference to civil or military authority."

Murder

Brisbane was one of five settlers murdered on 26 August 1833 by a group of Gauchos and Indians led by Antonio Rivero who resented Matthew Brisbane's return to authority and the return to the previous terms of payment, in paper money issued by Vernet.

There's a lot of information in FitzRoy's book - with the long title as noted in the references, pps 328-335. This includes extracts from Brisbane's logs in 1830 and some details of Seymour's landing 1834. I haven't read it all - there's quite a lot there.