10th Feb 1832

St. Jago to Fernando Norinha
In the morning a vessel was in sight. We chased her all day and have just come up to her this evening. She is a Packet bound for Rio and in the morning I intend sending a letter to England via Rio de Janeiro, as possibly it may sooner arrive there by this than any other conveyance. I have felt a little sea-sickness to day: which is too bad, as objects of interest are continually occurring. There were plenty of flying fish round the vessel but no large ones.

Everybody is much pleased with the Beagles sailing, it certainly is something extraordinary so very easily to beat a packet, which is built as a man of war and without her guns. It is rather unaccountable the extreme interest that is universally felt at speaking a ship in "blue water". We expected no news and we received none, yet I believe a great disappointment to every person in the ship if we had not boarded her.

To our shame be it spoken, we entirely forgot the Cholera Morbus, and although ourselves having smarted from the quarantine at Teneriffe, yet we made no enquiries about our friends in England.