"GENTLEMEN,--I know of no circumstance that has given me more satisfaction than your mission to the South Sea Islands. The attempt to introduce the arts of civilization and the knowledge of Christianity amongst the inhabitants of those islands was confessedly great. An undertaking of such a new and important nature could not be accomplished without much labour, expense, anxiety, and risk, to all who were concerned in the work. The missionaries, for the first ten years, suffered every privation in the islands, from causes which I need not state. They called for every support and encouragement to induce them to remain in the islands, and to return to their stations, after they had been compelled to take refuge in New South Wales. During these ten years, I used every means in my power to assist the missionaries, and to serve the Society Islands. During the next ten years, the ruling powers in this colony manifested a very hostile spirit to the mission. As I felt it my pleasure as well as my duty to support the cause, I fell under the marked displeasure of those in authority, and had a painful warfare to maintain for so long a period, and many sacrifices I had to make. The ungodly world always treated the attempt to introduce the gospel among the natives of the Islands as wild and visionary, and the Christian world despaired of success. "In those periods of doubt and uncertainty in the public mind, I suffered much anxiety, as very great responsibility was placed on me. Sometimes, from one cause and another, my sleep departed from me; though I was persuaded God would bless the work. The work is now done; this your eyes have seen, and your ears heard; in this I do rejoice and will rejoice. I wish you, as representatives of the Society, to satisfy yourselves, from friends and foes, relative to my conduct towards the mission for the last twenty-five years. You must be aware that many calumnies have been heaped upon me, and many things laid to my charge which I know not. My connexion with the missionaries and the concerns of the mission has been purely of a religious nature, without any secular views or temporal interests; and my services, whether they be great or small, were gratuitous. The missionaries, as a body, are very valuable men, and as such I love them; but some of them, to whom I had been kind, have wounded me severely, both here and elsewhere. I have always found it difficult to manage religious men; what they state, though in a bad spirit, is generally believed by the Christian world. I need not enter into the circumstances which urged me to purchase the Queen Charlotte, as you are in full possession of them; you are also acquainted with the reason why her expenses became so heavy, the fall of colonial produce more than twenty per cent.