ABSTRACT
Having first completed the indispensable tasks for mooring [the corvette] and arranging the stores, and having made the required demonstrations of courtesy and deference to Brigadier Antonio de Córdoba y Lazo, 1 comandante of the local squadron, and Governor of the town, Mariscal de Campo Antonio Olaguer, 2 all our immediate duties were to attend to our usual astronomical and hydrographic work as much as to the successful conclusion of all other branches of our voyage. For the former purpose the observatory was established at a house near the place where it had been last time. The four chronometers from both corvettes were taken there immediately, while Don Juan Inciarte undertook the systematic compilation of the results of the latest part of the voyage. On the other hand, at a meeting of the officers of both corvettes, presided over by Don Antonio de Córdoba, consideration was given to the best means of ensuring that our return to Europe should be as rapid, safe and economical as was possible in the present state of the war. We understood from the mail which had arrived by sea that it would almost certainly continue for the rest of the year, as the French, with increasing determination, were resisting if not overcoming the allied powers that meant to conquer them.
