Louis Vernet, a merchant of Hamburg but of French birth, was granted thirty leagues of East Falkland to develop for beef and fisheries exploitation.  In June 1828, he was appointed Governor of the Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego, and his freehold was increased to include all of East Falkland.  Vernet had plans for creating ‘a great national fishery’, and to this end established ninety settlers of varying nationalities including Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and South American Indian decent. 

Vernet’s operation was a real success, and large profits were made through salt beef and salted fish exports to the South American coast.  An Irishman, Captain Matthew Brisbane, was in charge of Vernet’s fisheries activities, and was quite a character.  Vernet reports that Brisbane was the sole survivor of two shipwrecks, one of which wrecked on Tierra del Fuego, forcing him to adapt a tree trunk into a crude canoe, with which he paddled back to the Falkland Islands.