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[Page 3]
-cation being made, will order the Navy Board, their book seller, their stationer, and Arrowsmith to furnish the lists on the first page; and that the treasury purveyor will provide the last on the application of the admiralty; but if you, Sir Joseph, will take the trouble, I wish to leave this matter entirely to you, and I only send the lists as containing my ideas upon what is necessary. No fishing gear are inserted, because we shall get supplied from this yard; but I have inserted shooting materials in the lists of articles for presents, but which are certainly meant to provide ourselves with food, and for defence. I think it right that these should be found to us.
On receiving the new establishment for the Investigator, I wrote to the Admiralty for the boatswain, gunner and carpenter; and represented, that there were several people now on board who were unfit to go the voyage and submitted it to their consideration, whether the whole company should not consist of volunteers. This morning I find, that V. Ad. [Vice Admiral] Graeme has received orders to take out such men as I object to, and to complete the complement with volunteers; but these changes are not to take place until we get to the Nore. I did not mention the Reliances people now in the Jamaica, lest it might interfere with what you had done.
In answer to another application to the Navy Board about the master, they devise me this morning to pitch upon some body; and refer me to a letter of Feb. 26 which I never received. But since I find that they depend entirely on me, I shall fix upon some body immediately, from the necessity of having one before much is done in the holds.
The victualling office have yet sent us nothing, b[ut have ?- words obliterated] inform me, that the provisions I requested, are ordered to [be got ? - words obliterated] ready. The shipwrights are now getting on with us, and if we had the master, the water and provisions, we should soon have little to wait for, but the articles contained in the present lists.
No application has yet been made to the Sick & Hurt Board for the concrete acid of lemon, or other antiscorbutics; but I trust that Dr. Blane will have every thing necessary prepared for us.
I hoped to have received a line from you, Sir Joseph, this morning, and trust that I shall be gratified by next post. I am anxious for your opinion about my coming to town, and to know if any progress is made with the charts and memoir; with various fears.
With the greatest respect and esteem, I am Sir Joseph,
your obliged humble servant
Mattw Flinders