been made acquainted with his
reasons for doubting the existence of the harbour, and the fertility of
the surrounding country, as well as with his desire to have the question
satisfactorily set at rest, I requested him to write to me on the
subject; and on the receipt of his letter,* I communicated, also in
writing, with his Excellency, Governor Hutt, and the Surveyor-General,
Mr. Roe; the result of which correspondence was, that I determined to
examine that portion of the coast; and to afford Mr. Clifton the
opportunity of accompanying me, and with his own eyes convincing himself
of the policy or impolicy of the course he had adopted.

(*Footnote. From which the following is an extract: Your arrival at Gage
Roads, in her Majesty's surveying vessel, Beagle, under your command,
affords me an opportunity of soliciting your able assistance towards the
solution of a question of great interest, not only to the Western
Australian Company, whom I represent, but to this colony at large; and I
feel assured that your known zeal in the cause of Geographical and
Hydrographical research will induce you, if it be within your power, to
comply with the request which I now take the liberty to make. Under these
feelings I proceed to state to you, that the Western Australian Company,
after all their plans had been formed for founding their intended Colony
of Australind, in Leschenault inlet, were led under circumstances which
occurred, and information which reached them, to abandon that intention
and to determine to fix their settlement at a port discovered by Captain
Grey, designated in England by the appellation of Port Grey, and lying on
the North-West coast of this colony, in or about the latitude of 29
degrees south, within the limits of the district between Gantheaume Bay
and the River Arrowsmith, in which district her Majesty's Government had
permitted the Company to take possession of extensive tracts of land in
lieu of their property in other parts of Western Australia.

Upon my arrival, however, in March last, at Port Leschenault, with the
intention of conveying in the Parkfield, with the first body of settlers
and emigrants to the new district, the Company's surveying establishment
already employed in this neighbourhood, I received such communications
from his Excellency the Governor, and such information respecting the
supposed Port Grey, and the country in its vicinity, together with a
tracing of the partial survey made by yo