Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 1: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822King, Philip Parker
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Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia — Vol. 1: Performed between the years 1818 and 1822
King, Philip Parker
Australia -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Australia
The arrangements for providing you with a proper vessel and crew, and
other necessaries for the prosecution of the service having been made by
the Colonial Department, my Lords have no directions to give you on these
subjects, but to recommend you in the conduct and discipline of the
vessel which may be intrusted to your care, to conform, as far as may be
practicable, to the established usages of the navy, and to the
regulations for preserving health, cleanliness, and good order, which
have been established in His Majesty's ships when employed in Voyages of
Discovery.
In order to assist you in the care and use of the timekeepers and
instruments with which their Lordships have directed the Hydrographer of
this department to furnish you, and to follow your orders in all other
particulars relating to the service, my Lords have directed Messrs.
Frederick Bedwell and John Septimus Roe, two young gentlemen, who have
been recommended to them as peculiarly fitted to be of use to you, and
for whose appointment you have expressed your wishes, to accompany you
and to be under your command.
The principal object of your mission is to examine the hitherto
unexplored Coasts of New South Wales, from Arnhem Bay, near the western
entrance of the Gulf of Carpentaria, westward and southward as far as the
North-west Cape; including the opening, or deep bay called Van Diemen's
Bay, and the cluster of islands called Rosemary Islands, and the inlets
behind them, which should be most minutely examined; and, indeed, all
gulfs and openings should be the objects of particular attention; as the
chief motive for your survey is to discover whether there be any river on
that part of the coast likely to lead to an interior navigation into this
great continent.
It is for several reasons most desirable that you should arrive on this
coast, and commence your survey as early as possible, and you will
therefore, when the vessel shall be ready, lose no time in proceeding to
the unexplored coasts; but you are at liberty to commence your survey at
whichever side you may judge proper, giving a preference to that which
you think you may be able soonest to reach; but in case you think that
indifferent, my Lords would wish you to commence by the neighbourhood of
the Rosemary Islands.
Either on your way out, or on returning, you should examine the coast
between Cape Leeuwin and the Cape Gosselin, in M. De Freycinet's chart;
and generally you will observe, that it is very desirable that you should
visit those ranges of coast which the French navigators have either not
seen at all, or at too great a distance to ascertain and lay down
accurately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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