President’s Address. 
9 
instructions (both of which can be seen in the formal reports 
publish ed), which were sufficient to insure success. The leader, 
however, divided his party and stores, taking on with him to 
Cooper’s Creek only the smaller portion, and leaving the larger 
party to follow under the leadership of a bushman, Mr. Wright, 
appointed and instructed not by the Committee, but by (Mr. 
Burke himself in the field, when the Expedition was prac- 
tically beyond the control of the Society. This person failed 
to carry out the instructions of Mr. Burke for the immediate * 
advance of the reserve party and stores to Cooper’s Creek. Mr. 
Brahe remained at his post with his little party and the stores 
first brought up, at the depot at Cooper’s Creek, until long 
after the date at which Burke on parting with him left him 
orders to return ; and as it was well known that if the Gulf 
of Carpentaria were reached, the safest and easiest route home 
would be by the watered and grassed north-east coast line 
leading down to the settled districts of Queensland — and this 
route had actually formed the subject of their last conversa- 
tion — Bralie felt at last that there was a probability that 
Burke was already at home by that route, and that at any 
rate the time had arrived, not only when he had overstaid 
the period allotted him by Burke, but when the provisions 
had become so far reduced (as Wright and the reserve party 
had not come up), that he had only enough left to carry his 
party down to the next depot, and leave a sufficient supply 
buried to bring down Burke and his companions also, if 
they should come. 
This reasoning was approved at the time by the Committee 
and the public, and it was obvious, apparently (not then 
having the knowledge of after events), that the party could 
do no good by remaining beyond this point, but, on the con- 
trary, that further delay would diminish the stock of food, 
already reduced to the lowest point of safety for both parties ; 
yet, when subsequent misfortunes became known, this man 
was assailed with almost inhuman cruelty and injustice by 
the press and the public, as the direct cause of the calamity 
which followed, and I was almost alone in raising my 
voice in his defence, by showing that his conduct was 
approved when the public knowledge of following events 
was no greater than his at the time. 
But now comes the sad story of the unaccountable chapter 
of unlucky mischances which clouded all the glories of the 
Expedition, by the loss of the leader and his second. Brahe 
