The above letter was forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Home Department by an early conveyance from the Cape of Good Hope, where the Neptune stopped for some short time for the purpose of recruiting her stock of water, and obtaining a supply of fresh provisions for the convicts and guards. An application was made in person by Captain Carns to the Governor at the Cape, to have the two mutinous seamen, Waterson and Anderson, put on shore, as it was dangerous to take them any further; but the Governor did not seem to think that the matter came under his cognizance. However, some time after this, the business was so arranged that those dangerous men were allowed to take their discharge, and being paid their wages were set on shore at Cape Town, and finally dismissed. The great object I had in view, and the system adopted for the management and well-being of the convicts on board, were seriously affected, and in some degree materially embarrassed, by an occurrence which took place whilst the Neptune was lying at the Cape. As this matter appears to me to concern the situation of the prisoners, the relation, taken from the journal in the precise manner in which the transaction passed, is here introduced. “_March_ 5th.—At 11 P. M. the master having signified that it was the Governor’s wish to see us on shore, we waited on His Excellency. His Lordship’s manner at this interview, for such it may be strictly called, as conversation was out of the question, appeared so singular that it seems well worthy of a place in this journal. On our being announced, the doors were thrown open and we advanced, when we had the honour of _seeing_ His Lordship, who on the instant waved his hand,—turned on his heel,—muttered something about ‘Colonel Bird,’—and disappeared: such was the substance of our interview with the Governor by his own appointment.”——“It might be asked, Would His Excellency have treated his _groom_ and his _jockey_ with that sort of politeness as on this occasion he thought proper to show towards a respectable master of a London merchant ship and a surgeon of His Majesty’s navy, engaged to attend him, at his own desire, in an affair of public duty?”