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[Page 2]
executing the Service they are engaged in - I have made them as comfortable as I can, and will render them all the Service in my power - By the Glatton I informed you that Caley intended going in the Porpoise to Settle V. Diemens land, they sailed in June - Blowing weather & foul winds sent the Porpoise back at the end of 17 days, and the Lady Nelson having lost her main keel returned also returned also - Cayley [Caley] will go to Sea no more as he is heartily tired of Ships - The circumstance of the Porpoises return with Capt Flinders, obliged me to send the Lady Nelson & another small vesell with our first Settlers to Flinders Cove - I believe your Scientific Guests mean to go by some future opportunity not only there but to Hunters River & Norfolk Island -
By the Glatton I think I stated my reasons for settling Van Diemens land, which were principally to prevent the French for claiming or settling that Country, Its being a good situation to send a part of the Convicts, and an asylum for our Sealers, and the facility of getting Timber; Excepting these causes I have no other immediate ones but perhaps when we know more about it other advantages may arise - We shall know more about it if Mr Brown extends his visit that port - Settling a place further to the Northward might be more Eligible to the future prospects of the Colony and its advantage to England as cotton might grow within the tropic which it will not do here - That article would be highly advantageous for the China Market - For that purpose as well as the growth of Coffee & Indigo some place about Broad Sound appears well calculated, and another great advantage may result from the great use of [indecipherable] in that neighbourhood, which Capt Flinders says is 30 Feet here our Rise is not more than Six Feet & in the Derwent still less - Now for the Trepang which the Malays get from the Gulph of Carpentaria, & the [indecipherable] that grows there may recommend a Settlement to be made there may [indecipherable]