is well known at the Admiralty, as a good officer – and, he is a perfect gentleman – I therefore cannot resist his solicitation in applying in his favor, which must plead my apology for troubling you with this letter. I have the honor to be, &c.
(Signed)“Conyngham.”
“Right Hon. Charles Grant, &c. &c. &c.”
In Feb. 1823, the same nobleman applied in Captain Evans’s favor to Viscount Melville, who returned the following answer:–
“Admiralty, 28th Feb. 1823.
“My dear Lord,– I have received your Lordship’s letter of the 18th instant, and shall not fail to note your application in favor of Captain Robert Evans, to be brought under consideration whenever a proper opportunity may offer. I return Captain Evans’s letter, and I have the honor to be, my dear Lord, your Lordship’s very faithful, &c.
(Signed)“Melville.”
“To the Marquis Conyngham.”
Having now concluded our account of Captain Evans’s professional services, we must return back to Dec. 27, 1807, on which day he addressed a letter to Lord Mulgrave, pointing out the impossibility of a continued intercourse between the Malay traders and Prince of Wales’s island, should ever Malacca be alienated from the British Crown; and therefore recommending the formation of a settlement at Dilha, in the island of Timor, to which port they would at all times be able to resort for commercial purposes, without running any risk of being intercepted and enslaved by the Dutch. In the same letter he also recommends the establishment of a British settlement between Malacca and the China seas, and mentions Sincapore as very eligibly situated with relation to the whole Eastern archipelago, to China, and to India, for an extended commerce, if held as a free port under British protection. For this, and a second communication respecting Dilha, he received his Lordship’s thanks, in two letters, dated Jan. 9, and Mar. 18, 1808; and had he addressed himself to the Board of Controul, instead of to the Admiralty, we have no doubt that Sincapore would have been taken possession of long before the year 1819; and that the wild project of colonizing Melville island, in the gulf of Carpentaria, as a place well situated “for the encouraging of trade
