six months'
consumption, together with tents, blankets, clothing, pack-saddles,
utensils, instruments, tools, and necessaries of all kinds of which you
are likely to stand in need. Orders are also given for providing you with
arms and ammunition, with rockets for signals, and an ample supply of
simple medicines--You are to consider it an important duty to attend to
the providing of all these supplies, and to take care that not only every
article is of the best quality that can be procured, but also that no
article be wanting with which you may desire to be provided.

3. Orders are given for forwarding without delay all your provisions,
stores and supplies of every kind to Wellington Valley, at which place,
you, Mr. Hume, and all your men are to rendezvous as soon as possible.
Mr Maxwell, the superintendent, will furnish you with well-trained
bullocks, and afford you all the assistance you may require in arranging
every thing for your departure from that station.

4. After you shall have completed all your arrangements, you are to lose
no time in finally departing from Wellington Valley in prosecution of the
immediate objects of the expedition.

5. You are first to proceed to Mount Harris, where you are to form a
temporary depot, by means of which you will have an opportunity of more
readily communicating with Mr. Maxwell.

6. You are then to endeavour to determine the fate of the Macquarie River,
by tracing it as far as possible beyond the point to which Mr. Oxley went,
and by pushing westward, you are to ascertain if there be any high lands
in that direction, or if the country be, as it is supposed, an unbroken
level and under water. If you should fail in these objects, you will
traverse the plains lying behind our north-west boundaries, with a view to
skirt any waters by which you may have been checked to the westward; and
if you should succeed in skirting them, you are to explore the country
westward and southward as far as possible, endeavouring to discover the
Macquarie beyond the marsh of Mr. Oxley, and following it to its mouth if
at all practicable.

7. There is some reason to believe that the over-flowing of the Macquarie
when visited by Mr. Oxley, was occasioned by heavy rains falling in the
mountains to the eastward, and that as you are to visit the same spot at a
different season of the year, you may escape such embarrassment; but
although you should get beyond the point at which Mr. Oxley stopped, it
w