tated in consequence of accounts transmitted in the first moments of despondency, were received by way of New South Wales, for its immediate abandonment. It was consequently abandoned forthwith, with great loss to the British government, and with extreme reluctance on the part of those more immediately concerned in its welfare and advancement.
In addition to the other motives that should induce His Majesty's government to re-establish the settlement which was thus so unhappily given up, on the north coast of New Holland, I may observe, that Port Essington and Raffles Bay are in the immediate vicinity of Torres's Straits; a narrow passage, of which the navigation is unusually perilous, and which has hitherto proved a frequent source of shipwreck or disaster to British vessels. Besides, as hardships of various kinds, difficulties of unexpected magnitude, and disease in unlooked-for aspects, are almost uniformly experienced in the formation of new settlements, even in situations that are afterwards found remarkably salubrious, as was eminently the case even in New South Wales; it is surely fitting and reasonable, that these hardships, difficulties, and diseases should be encountered and surmounted by transported felons, rather than by a free emigrant population. In short, under a proper system of
