320 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, &C. 



hewed a request, some time previously made, that a termina- 

 tion might be appointed for his labours in the southern hemi- 

 sphere : he most touchingly says : — 



" May I be permitted again, most earnestly and respect- 

 fully to beg you, to weigh duly the several points sub- 

 mitted to your consideration, in my letter of March last, and 

 in again urging my great desire to visit my native land. I 

 trust with the utmost confidence, that a service of fourteen 

 years, in the arduous occupation of botanical collector for his 

 Majesty's Gardens, will assuredly obtain for me the permis- 

 sion to return to England, in the earlier months of the next 

 year; and, looking forward to the close of my labours in the 

 colony at that period, it is my fullest intention to employ 

 myself during the current year, in the performance of the 

 several duties of my appointment ; and (particularly as the 

 season may favour me,) that of collecting living specimens of 

 such plants as are still desiderata of the Royal Gardens. 

 To this end, it is my design (in obedience to your desire,) to 

 make my voyage to Moreton Bay in the cooler months of 

 the year, in order to take up, for establishing in boxes, young 

 plants of the Araucaria or Brisbane Pine, so frequent on the 

 river bearing that name, as well as those of Flindersia, Car- 

 issa, Hoya, and many other interesting genera, not known to 

 exist, indigenously, to the southward of that penal setdement. 

 Several botanical excursions to various parts of the colony, 

 and my visit to Van Dieman's Land, will employ me to 

 the close of the year ; at which period, although I may not 

 have received any instructions, I nevertheless shall be induced 

 to hope, that the consideration of the length of the service in 

 which I have been steadily engaged, independently of the 

 bodily indisposition contracted daring its progress, and under 

 which I so frequently labour, will at once remove any objec- 

 tion to my quitting the colony that might otherwise exist, 

 and justify me fully in taking my passage for England, in one 

 or other of the next year's wool ships, in charge of such col- 

 lections as circumstances and season may have enabled me to 

 form." 



To be continued. 



