e valuable aid which I received from his Excellency the
Governor, I was particularly indebted to Captain Frome the
Surveyor-general, Captain Sturt the Assistant-commissioner, and Thomas
Gilbert, Esq. the Colonial storekeeper, for unceasing kindness and
attention, and for much important assistance rendered to me by the loan
of books and instruments, the preparation of charts, and the fitting up
of drays, etc. etc.

Captain Frome, too, now laid me under increased obligations by giving up
his own servant, Corporal Coles of the Royal Sappers and Miners, upon my
expressing a wish to take him with me, and the Governor sanctioning his
going.

This man had accompanied Captain Grey in all his expeditions on the
North-west coast of New Holland--and had been highly recommended by that
traveller; he was a wheelwright by trade, and being a soldier was likely
to prove a useful and valuable addition to my party; and I afterwards
found him a most obliging, willing and attentive person.

To the Governor and to the Committee of colonists I owe many thanks, for
the very flattering and gratifying confidence they reposed in me, a
confidence which left me as unrestricted in my detail of outfit and
equipment, as I was unfettered in my plan of operations in the field.
This enabled me to avoid unnecessary delays, and to hasten every thing
forward as rapidly as possible, so that when requested by the Governor to
name a day for my departure I was enabled to fix upon the 18th of June.

Having already done all in their power to forward and assist the
equipment and arrangement of the expedition, the Governor and Mrs. Gawler
were determined still further to increase the heavy debt of gratitude
which I was already under to them, by inviting myself and party to meet
the friends of the expedition at Government House on the morning of our
departure, that by a public demonstration of interest in our welfare, we
might be encouraged in the undertaking upon which we were about to
enter--and might be stimulated to brave the perils to which we should
shortly be exposed, by a remembrance of the sympathy expressed in our
behalf, and the pledge we should come under to the public upon leaving
the abode of civilised man, for the unknown and trackless region which
lay before us.

On the 15th of June I attended a meeting of the Committee, and presented
for audit the accounts of the expenditure incurred up to that date. On
the 16th I had a sale of all my private