Willems Plains.'] TERRA AUSTRALIS. 
my prayer is, to be examined, to be tried, to be condemned, if I have in 
action, intention, or thought, done any thing whilst employed in my voyage 
of discovery, against the French nation or its allies, — “if in any way I have 
infringed upon the line of conduct prescribed by the passport of the first 
consul of France. To have the best years of my life, the essence of my 
existence thus drained away without any examination into the affair , to have 
the fruits of my labours and risks thus ravished from me,— my hopes of 
advancement and of reputation thus cruelly blasted, is almost beyond what I 
am able to support. Use then, I conjure you. Sir, your best endeavours with 
those men in France who have it in their power to forward my wish ; with 
those men for whom a voyage of discovery, the preservation of national faith, 
and the exercise of humanity have still attractions. With such men, in spite 
of the neglect which my extraordinary situation here has undergone, now 
near three years, I will not believe but that the French empire abounds j a 
Fleurieu, a Bougainville, a Lalande, aDelambre, and numberless others,- 
can such men be strangers to national honour and humanity ? Has a man 
reduced to misfortune by his ardent zeal to advance geography and its 
kindred sciences, no claims upon men like these ? It cannot be. However 
unworthy an instrument I am in the hands of our literary British worthies, 
my employment, if not my misfortunes, give me a claim upon their assistance 
in obtaining, at least, an examination into my crimes or my innocence ; and 
this claim I now make. See these celebrated men. Sir, explain to them the 
circumstances of my situation, tell them the plain tale, aud that it is towards 
them, though so distant, that my looks are directed ; your own name 
will give you an introduction, and the cause you undertake will not dis- 
grace it. 
Adieu, worthy Sir, may the winds be propitious, and may you never be 
reduced to the bitterness of sighing after justice in vain. 
465 
1806. 
August 
