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under despotic power, was evident in this letter; but it gave no further insight into the reasons for making me a prisoner, and consequently no opportunity of vindicating my innocence. It therefore seemed wisest, seeing the kind of man with whom I had to deal, to follow his directions and leave the main subject to the operation of time; but to take off my mind from dwelling too intensely upon the circumstance of being arrested at such a conjuncture, I determined to employ it in forwarding my voyage, if an application for the necessary papers should be attended with success.

Having obtained a translation of the general's letter from the interpreter, who came next morning in company with the surgeon, I wrote to request,

1st. My printed books from the schooner.

2d. My private letters and papers out of the secretary's office.

3rd. To have two or three charts and three or four manuscript books, for the purpose of finishing the chart of the Gulph of Carpentaria; adding in explanation, that the parts wanting were mostly lost in the shipwreck, and I wished to replace them from my memory and remaining materials before it were too late. For these a receipt was offered, and my word that nothing in the books should be erased or destroyed; but I wished to make additions to one or two of the books as well as to the charts, and would afterwards be ready to give up the whole.

4th. I represented a complaint from my seamen, of being shut up at night in a place where not a breath of air could come to them; which, in a climate like this, must be not only uncomfortable in the last degree, but very destructive to European constitutions. Also, that the people with whom they were placed were affected with that disagreeable and contagious disorder the itch; and that their provisions were too scanty, except in the article of bread, the proportion of which was large, but of a bad quality.

An answer was given on the same day by one of the general's aides-de-camp, who said that orders had been given for the delivery