The vast importance of Australia as the source on which the English manufacturer must at some future day depend for his supplies of wool, had already occupied his thoughts. He found that within three years his own stock without any care on his part, (for his farm was entirely managed in his absence by a trusty bailiff who had been a convict,) had upon an average been doubled in number and value. With the energy which was natural to him, he carried some of his own wool to Leeds, where he had it manufactured, and he had the satisfaction to learn that it was considered equal, if not superior, to that of Saxony or France. His private letters abound with intimations that ere long Australia must become the great wool-producing country to which the English manufacturer would look. He was introduced to king George the Third, and took the liberty, through Sir Joseph Banks, of praying for a couple of Merino sheep, His Majesty's property, to improve the breed; and his last letter from England, dated from the Cowes Roads, mentions their reception on board. We anticipate a little, but must quote the letter, were it only to let the reader see how possible it is to be at once diligent in business and fervent in spirit. "We are this moment getting under weigh, and soon expect to be upon the ocean. I have received a present of five Spanish sheep from the king's flock, which are all on board; if I am so fortunate as to get them out they will be a most valuable acquisition to the colony. I leave England with much satisfaction, having obtained so fully the object of my mission. It is the good hand of our God that hath done these things for us. I have the prospect of getting another pious minister. I am writing to him on the subject this morning, and I hope he will soon follow us.... On Sunday I stood on the long boat and preached from Ezekiel xviii. 27: 'When the wicked man turneth away,' etc. It was a solemn time, many of the convicts were affected. We sang the Hundredth Psalm in the midst of a large fleet. The number of souls on board is more than four hundred. God may be gracious to some of them; though exiled from their country and friends, they may cry unto him in a foreign land, when they come like the Jews of old to hang their harps upon the willows, and weep when they remember Zion, or rather when they remember England."[F] [F] To Avison Terry, Esq., Hull.