The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-29 00:00:00

MISSIONARY MADNESS.

- - ----- -
A most appalling story will be found in another
column of our impression this day. An English officer,
Captain Gardiner, of the,Royal Navy, who had proceeded
with six companions upon what was called the "Patagoe
nian Mission' to the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, hoe
been literally starved to death—he, and hisoompaniona
with him. Neither reverence fore'in which
they were engaged nor
admiration of the lofty
,quak-s
gra-ntL f-NittiMf. a . e_vs.l,ln blind our eniti•tre
dented, or smother the expression timP-f nrtuttlWinaa'dign"ila:
tion against those who could wantonly risk so many
iat
home—surely
Surely
valuable lives on so hopeless an o
there is distress and agony ugh
there is ignorance and vice enoughen expedition.
iniithebonndaries
of the four seas. When this distresswt a
alleviated—when this ignorance shall have been have beers,
men enlight-e
bard missionsi will
tiot
ened—when this vice shall have been extirpated,
not be time enough to think of dispatching
i n s
Cape Horn? There is such a thing a
even among acts of duty. What are we to think subordination,
even
n
charity which disregards the claims• of the aufferina
thousands who speak with English tongues, but can..
find sympathy and money enough when there is is,
question of affording assistance to a parcel of scarcely
human savages, separated from us, we may almost say,
by the diameter of the globe? True, they may be.
living in the midst of savagery and brutality of the,
wildest kind, but at least they are not afflicted with than
worst species of suffering—conscious degradation. They
have not present before their eyes at every moment of
the day a standard of comparison which adds intensity
to every pang they suffer. We should be perfectly will-
ing to accept the argument against the promoters of these
wild schemes from their own point of view. We should.
be prepared to show them in our own large towns, and
in the very centre of British civilization, persons asig-
norant of the first rudiments of Christianity as the
wretched savages who persecuted Captain Gardiner and
his companions amidst the tempests of Cape Horn. The
reports of the various commissioners connected with the
Associations for the Promotion of Christianity by va-
rious means in the populous districts of English towns
will supply them with all requisite information. Let
them go to the Bishop of Louuon—let them go to Lord
Shafteshury—let them go to the nearest inspector of po-
lice, and they can soon supply themselves wiih facts
sufficient to quicken their missionary zeal. We, who
may be supposed to entertain the question rather
in the spirit of statesmen or politicians, would
say, " Why do not yon, who are blessed with
abundant means, rather pluck a few hundreds or thou-
sands of your suffering countrymen from certain de-
struction than waste your energies upon a horde of
savages separated from you by every line of demarca-
tion which Providence can set between human beings?
What would you say to the wild Patagonian.who would
with a dry eye abandon his unfortunate countrymen to
their ignorance, their brutality, and their storms, and
devote his life to the purpose of procuring painted glass
for the windows of St. Barnahae in Belgravia, or sub•
scriptions for the erection of district churches in Bolton
or in Sheffield? Is it not in your power, by a slight
exercise of your superit,r intelligence and a slight
expenditure of tour alonedelit mottos, to remove many
an English family to Alutralia or the Csoadas, to lands
where they will grow up ..vithent the awful temptations
to which they must inevi4tbly be exposed at home, and
where the it. children will ra,ct, wiut all prefiteble in-
struction and teaching? Your sympathies are not with
them. Their telf,Tieg:i are r. com. -.non and everyday
matter. it r( quires almost the p_unger.cy of s, romance
to lash your sluggish z,21 into uetivity. The Patagonian
and the ne,zro sr'; sour hroth(r4--not so your poor
English ft,llow•countrytufri." tits ati:.;,; as It 1114 y e p:ar,
this is 0 lAni,mtAhle ten, t, and the r,..:uir, is neglect at
home, and misdirected energy abrole.
it is unnee.sary here to reproduce the particulars of
the story, which will be found in 2,inrk, detail in Captain
Morsheatt
'a report. Suffice it to siy thet the ili-lated
party
)all(leil- on ricton Island towards the conclusion of
in some measure, by the natives, and to have
the year 1850. .Front the first they scene to have been
annoyed,
been hunted bftekwards and forwards from the little island
to what may be called the mainland of Tierra del Fuego.
About the middle of April, 1851, Captain Gardiner
begins to record in his diary, which has been preserved
to us, that " they have provisions eneugh to last for two
months, but some are very low." They have but a flask
and a-half of powder; their fishing-net is washed away.
They shoot an occasional fox, which serves them for food;
arid, besides, if they did Lot destroy the animal, ho
would do his best to steal the remainder of their
little stock of provisions. Toe scurvy breaks out
in a cavern ; but the tide rolls in, and
among the party. They are driven to take refuge
Captain Gardiner and Mr. Isltidment, the cafe-
chist, are obliged to swim out for their lives, and take
refuge upon a clump
of rock, round the base of which
the waves of the South Atlantic aro breaking. upon
this rock the two poor creatures kneel down in prayer.
John Badcock, a Cornish fisherman, dies. By July 4
the party have been seven weeks on short allowance;
dfor
ri3rn broth
and their only hope is in the expected ship from the Falk-
landa shag, a half-devoured fish
Islands; but no ship comes. They greedily eat a
arOsathsheCladexut roe -
penguin,
the shore. Six mice are spoken of iu
anti
, boiled down the journalP n
dainties. The garden-seeds have been use
ish fisher-
and are all spent. Mce..eles and limpets
chotenterr,oeatwßeeryd
man, die. Two of the party, Mr. W
another conru to a jelly.
course—aid
Erwin,
illiams, the
surgeon, and Pearce, a third Corni h
away, from the main body tit th s man, had gone
object or other, probably for e Party, for some
food. Their dead oodles the discovery of
River, sumo distance off. wire discovered at Cook's
must 'MVO died about the The presumption is they
same
time
asCaptain Gar-
diner himself, who probably
The last entry in e:cPired
on
the 6th of Sep-
tember.
his diary is on the sth of
September, and in thislie
mentions that he had not
tasted food or water forfour days. Mr. Maidmont, the
few
_days before. .As it was the
6th of January, 1852,
at the ishu),l,
we , o before Captain Morshead arrived
had been taken ~avo the value of the precautions which
fur maintaining the expedition to the
public . judgment.
Poor . '
Captain heardiner's diary- in which he records
day by day ' •
the Plow ' process of his agony, brings the
scene very vividly before us. In its naked simplicity it
far exceeds the wild ravings which Victor Hugo has
placed in the mouth of the condemned criminal who is
supposed to record his feelings day by day between con-
demnation and execution. Surelytitis should be a severe
lesson to the friends and advocates of distant missionary
enterprise. What had we to do in Patagonia and its
inhospitable islands? In Patagonia itself, as far as we
know from the little iufortnation we have derived from
the South American Governments, there aro some
hordes of wanderieglndians—but of their real condition
we are in perfect ignorance. The very lines of the
coast were mere guess work upon the charts until the
surveying expeditions of the Beagle and Enterprise in
1826-36. Surely it is unjust, impolitic, and unnecessary
to devote the great SOWS which would be necessary in
order to carry. out any missionary expedition of an ef-
fective nature in such a region to any such purpose
while we have so ran destitution and ignorance at
home. At an rate, thy e thing should either be well
done, or it should not be done at all. We cannot, with
reason, incur the expense of doing it well. The fate of
Captain Gardiner and his companions should prove a
terrible warning against any unadvised and insufficient
expeditions of the like kind for many a year to come.
Let us hear no more of Patagonian missions. The
pro-
moters of the scheme have already incurred
a reeponsi-
' bility which should give them subject for poignant re-
gret, to cease only with their lives.-7inte.s•

ahtetr.he t rt
whole
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