Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/257

 No. 5.

COPY OF A LETTER just received from Capt. Irvin, dated 26th January, and 4th February, 1833. Henly Park, January 26th, 1833,

Upper Swan.

I have had the pleasure of receiving your Letter of October 7th, by the Cornwallis, and sit down to take advantage of her departure to write by her. My last was despatched to you by H.M.S. Imogene, early last month, Capt. Blackwood having touched here on his way from India to the eastern coast and isles in the Pacific.

We continue to get on quietly here, as I mentioned in my last. The crops have turned out very abundant, but the Van Diemen's Land seed has proved generally indifferent, and has introduced a good deal of smut; the farmers, however, seem well satisfied on the whole. I have directed Morgan to call on them for promissory notes, for the advances of provisions, payable the 1st June; and I have thought it advisable to issue a notice, that the Government consents to take, any time before then, wheat, the growth of the colony, in payment, delivered at 15s. per bushel, which is allowed by the farmers to be a fair remunerating price. Wheat has been selling at 25s. and 30s., but whenever Lennard and Brockman had thrashed, they offered it at their farms at 15s. Stephen Henty arrived a few days since with the Thistle, and a well-assorted cargo, including twenty tons of flour, which he sold for 4½d.; and wheat, I am told, at 8s. per bushel, to M'Dermott both; she goes back immediately for another cargo. The wheat crop is generally rated as under six months' consumption. I have some idea that it will be necessary to order from the company at the Cape fifty tons of flour, by Henderson, but our expenditure in stores has been so heavy that I shall not do so, if I can avoid it. As the expense of the Ellen is