Following another shipwreck in Patagonia in 1830, Brisbane escaped on a makeshift boat to Port Louis in West Falkland, where he became Vernet's director of fisheries and his chief representative in the islands when Vernet was in Buenos Aires. He attempted to enforce Vernet's exclusion of American sealers from Falklands waters, leading to the seizure of two American ships. This action resulted in the 1831 attack on Port Louis by the American naval sloop the USS Lexington, after which Brisbane and six others were arrested on charges of piracy and taken to Montevideo, where they were released. Brisbane returned to the Falklands in 1832 as a pilot for the Argentine naval vessel, the "Sarandí", where he was present at the Reassertion of British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.