of the Admiralty, your letter dated at Timor the 10th of Jane last, and in return I am commanded by their lordships to acquaint you that they approve of your proceedings, and are pleased to find that you appear to have done so much with such small means, and, they are glad to observe, without sickness or accidents. Their lordships commend your forbearance towards the natives, and they trust you will continue to be very careful of the lives of yourself, your officers, and your ship’s company.
(Signed)“John Barron.”
Soon after leaving Coupang, the crew of the Mermaid were attacked by dysentery, brought on by change of diet; and at one time the disease wore a very alarming appearance. On the 9th July, whilst running to the southward, in a heavy gale, her stern-boat was washed away; and on the 24th, just after re-entering Bass’s Strait, one of her seamen breathed his last. From the 13th of the same month, on which day she passed the meridian of Cape Leeuwin, until the 26th, when she was again on the east coast of New Holland, her people were constantly wet with the continued breaking over of the sea; and on the latter day, she had only five men capable of duty. On the 29th, at midnight, she anchored in Sydney Cove, after an absence of thirty-one weeks and three days, “Upon reviewing the proceedings of the voyage,” says her commander, “the result of which bore but a small proportion to what we had yet to do, I saw, with no little satisfaction, that I had been enabled to set at rest the two particular points of my instructions, namely, the opening behind Rosemary Island, and the examination of the great bay of Van Diemen.
“Upon rounding the N.W. Cape, we had been unfortunate in losing our anchors, which very much crippled our proceedings, and prevented our prosecuting the examination of the coast in so detailed a manner as we otherwise might have done; for we possessed no resource to avail ourselves of, if we had been so unfortunate as to get on shore. A series of fine weather, however, on the first part, and a sheltered coast with good anchorage, on the latter part of the voyage, enabled us to carry on the survey without accident; and nearly as much has been effected with one anchor, as could have been done had we possessed the whole. It prevented, however, our examining the bottom of Exmouth
