Having materially profited by a twelvemonth's previous residence in New South Wales, acquainting myself with the characters (and principal peculiarities of structure) of many genera of plants absolutely proper to Terra Australis; and particularly in that period, throughout the progress of a long and very interesting journey in the interior, to the westward of Port Jackson, I was most happy and desirous to obey an instruction I received from the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, on behalf of the Government, directing me to place myself under the orders of Captain P.P. King, to whom the execution of this important service had been intrusted, and to accompany him to those particular coasts, destined for his investigation, in order to form and prepare such collections of their vegetation, for the use of His Majesty's gardens at Kew, as circumstances, and the particular season of the year proper for visiting those shores, might afford me. My very limited knowledge of the plants of that continent, especially of genera, that form a striking feature in its Flora, was moreover essentially improved during our stay at King George's Sound on the South-west Coast, previous to our arrival upon the North-west Coast, at the commencement of the first voyage of His Majesty's cutter the Mermaid. Although the reader may inform himself, from Captain King's relation of the several voyages, of the opportunities that were afforded me in forming my collections of plants, still it appears necessary, in this place, to take a general retrospective view of those parts of the coasts under examination, whereon my researches were made, adverting, at the same time, to the prevalent unfavourable seasons for flowering plants, during which it should seem the survey of the North-west Coast could alone be effected with safety. During the progress of the survey of the southern extreme of the North-west Coast (at which part Captain King commenced his examinations, in 1818) I landed in Exmouth Gulf, then upon one of the islands of Dampier's Archipelago, at the Intercourse Islands, and on Malus Island; but the results of these several excursions (in some of which ample time was afforded me) did by no means answer my expectations; herbaceous plants being for the most part dead, and the few (hard woody) shrubs scarcely bearing fructification: disadvantages arising, in fact, from the extreme barrenness of the land, and more particularly from the prevalent droughts of the season, previous to the change of the monsoon, which soon afterwards took place, obliging us to quit the North-west Coast altogether; the remaining periods of the voyage being employed in the examination of certain parts of the North Coast.