280 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
Committee a proposition to the above effect. In conse- 
quence of this intimation, the following was submitted for His 
Excellency’s consideration :—** I am willing to accept (for a 
period), an appointment of Government Botanist in this 
colony, having the command of every means that I myself 
may point out, as necessary to enable me and a small party 
to travel, either inland or to the coast districts, on tours of 
botanical research, at any period of the year best suited to 
the objects I may have in view. But I beg clearly and ex- 
plicitly to state, that I trust my holding such a travelling ap- 
pointment will never connect me again with the Botanie Gar- 
den, from all the various duties of which I have permanently 
retired, with the exception of that of being instrumental in 
introducing desirable exotics, and the scarce indigenous 
plants, to the care and culture of Mr. Anderson, the prin- 
cipal Superintendent; on whom has now devolved the 
duties of directing the labour of the garden and vicinity, 
the management of the forty felon labourers assigned to the 
establishment, and the conducting of every description of 
local correspondence—all foreign I shall have a happiness and 
willingness to be engaged in, as being immediately connected 
with that mutually desirable interchange of plants and seeds 
which I have already established with Dr. Wallich of Cal- 
cutta, and others, for reciprocal advantage. I should also 
be disposed, if I have health, to undertake further explorative 
excursions, especially on the west, and north-west, from the 
shores of Moreton Bay, with a view towards acquiring some 
knowledge of the physical character, the vegetation and ge- 
neral capabilities for pastoral purposes of that vast region of 
interior wholly untrodden by white men, absolutely at this 
day a ferra incognita, stretching from the parallel of 28? S., in 
which latitude I left off in 1827, towards the great inter- 
tropical interior. With regard to the amount of salary to 
which I may be entitled for any such services as proposed, I 
would briefly say, that I trust it will be considered what I 
have been in this colony, (holding a Treasury appointment), 
