Lockridge remained for some days at Punta Arenas, engaged with Joseph N. Scott in fitting up one of the old disused river steamers for purposes of transportation. But he was not allowed to work without interruption by the British naval officers. On the morning of the 16th of January, Capt. Cockburn, of H. B. M.’s ship Cossack, went ashore at Punta Arenas, and inquired for the commander of the armed men occupying the point. On meeting Lockridge, Capt. Cockburn informed him he had received orders from Capt. Erskine, of Her Majesty’s ship Orion, and “senior officer of Her Majesty’s ships and vessels employed on the coasts of Central America,” to offer protection to any British subjects who might be detained and compelled to bear arms against their will. In accordance with his instructions, Capt. Cockburn demanded a list of all the men at Punta Arenas, and required them to be paraded in his presence, that he might read to them the orders of Capt. Erskine. The men were accordingly drawn up on the beach, and Cockburn read to them the order of Erskine. The concluding sentences of the order were: “Should any of the party in question claim protection as British subjects, and their claims appear to you to be well founded, you will acquaint the officer commanding, that these men must be permitted to withdraw from their present position; and you will (in the event of his acquiescence) either give these men a passage to Greytown, or take them on board Her Majesty’s ship under your command, to await my decision as to their disposal, as they may desire. In the event of the aforesaid officer resisting such a course as I have pointed out, you will inform him that, in the first place, no person whatever under his command will be permitted to leave their present position, to proceed up the river or elsewhere, until my demands shall be complied with; and, secondly, that I will adopt such measures to enforce the rights of British subjects as I may think best adapted to the purpose.” Ten men claimed and received protection under the order of Erskine, and were taken from the point in Cockburn’s boat. The instructions of Her Majesty’s government must have been indeed stringent, when they induced honorable officers to degrade themselves to the work of inciting men to desert a cause they had voluntarily embraced; for Cockburn, not satisfied with reading Erskine’s orders, had also advised the whole of Lockridge’s command of the dangers they ran in attacking the large force the Costa Ricans had concentrated on the river.