It has unfortunately been the fate of our Indian possessions to have laboured under the prejudice and contempt of a large portion of the well-bred community, for whilst the folly of fashion requires an acquaintance with the deserts of Africa, and a most ardent thirst for a knowledge of the usages of Timbuctoo, it at the same time justifies the most profound ignorance of all matters connected with the government and geography of our vast possessions in Hindostan. The Indian Archipelago has fully shared this neglect, for even the tender philanthropy of the present day, which originates such multifarious schemes for the amelioration of doubtful evils, and which shudders at the prolongation of apprenticeship in the West for a single year, is blind to the existence of slavery in its worst and most exaggerated form in the East. Not a single prospectus is spread abroad, not a single voice upraised in Exeter Hall, to relieve the darkness of paganism and the horrors of the slave trade. Whilst the trumpet tongue of many an orator excites thousands to the rational and charitable object of converting the Jews and reclaiming the gipsies; whilst the admirable exertions of missionary enterprise in the Ausonian climes of the South Sea have invested them with worldly power as well as religious influence; whilst the benevolent plans of the New Zealand Association contemplate the protection of the natives by the acquisition of their territory: whilst we admire the torrent of devotional and philosophical exertion, we cannot help deploring that the zeal and attention of the leaders of these charitable crusades have never been directed to the countries under consideration. These unhappy countries have failed to rouse attention or excite commiseration, and as they sink lower and lower, they afford a striking proof how civilisation may be crushed, and how the fairest and richest lands under the sun may become degraded by a continuous course of oppression and misrule. It is under these circumstances I have considered that individual exertions may be usefully applied to rouse the zeal of slumbering philanthropy, and lead the way to an increased knowledge of the Indian Archipelago. Such an exertion will be made at some cost and some sacrifice, and I shall here quit the general topic, and confine myself to the specific objects of my intended voyage. It must be premised, however, that any plan previously decided on must always be subject, during its execution, to great modification, in countries where the population is always wild and often hostile, and where the influence of climate is sometimes fatally opposed to the progress of inquiry. Local information, likewise, frequently renders a change both advisable and advantageous, and circumstances, as they spring up, too often influence beyond the power of foresight, especially in my own case, where the utmost care will still leave the means very inadequate to the full accomplishment of the proposed undertaking.