As to the funds, a lady at Cheltenham gave 700_l._, he himself 300_l._ The boats were purchased, three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, and Bryant, all of good character, volunteered from the same village; Joseph Erwin, the carpenter, who had been with him before, begged to go with him again, because, he said, "being with Captain Gardiner was like a heaven upon earth; he was such a man of prayer." One catechist was Richard Williams, a surgeon; the other John Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary of the Young Men's Association in London; and these seven persons, with their two launches, the _Pioneer_ and the _Speedwell_, were embarked on board the _Ocean Queen_, and sailed from Liverpool on the 7th of September, 1850.

They carried with them six months' provisions, and the committee were to send the same quantity out in due time, but they failed to find a ship that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton Island, and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to Tierra del Fuego for wood.
Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, were landed on Picton Island, and the _Ocean Queen_ pursued her way.

Time passed on, and no more was heard of them.

The Governor of the Falklands had twice made arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great anxiety, on the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in October 1851, a vessel on purpose to search for them.

At the same time, the _Dido_, Captain William Morshead, had been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the isles of Cape Horn and carry relief to the missionaries.
On the 21st of October, in a lonely little bay called Spaniards' Harbour, in Picton Island, the Falkland Island vessel found the _Speedwell_ on the beach, and near it an open grave.