330 
GOVERNMENT STORES. 
capabilities of the vessel from having been a packet, 
would afford accommodation for the officers, and led to 
the presumption that the Admiralty had such a con- 
tingency in view, in selecting the ‘Kite.’ On return- 
ing to Fernando Po, therefore, on the 5th July, Captain 
Allen ordered Lieutenant Gooch to receive on board, 
all the officers and men belonging to the Expedition, 
and to proceed at once to England. 
Dispatches were left for Captain Foote, announcing 
this determination, and enclosing duplicates of the 
instructions from the Colonial Office and the Admi- 
ralty : also a request to the officers of the squadron, 
that they would occasionally visit the Nun branch of 
the Niger, in order to be able to render assistance to 
Lieutenant Webb, if he should require it on his return 
from the interior. 
The Government stores belonging to the Expedi- 
tion, including valuable presents for the chiefs, &c., 
were placed in secure houses at Clarence under the 
care of Mr. White, the agent for the West African 
Company, to be delivered over to the senior officer on 
the coast. 
Charge of the ‘ Soudan’ was given, with a second 
master’s appointment, to Mr. Sturgess, who had volun- 
teered for that service, and eleven seamen were left 
with him, who had been sent out from England in the 
‘ Kite’ to join the squadron. 
Before leaving Fernando Po, we visited for the last 
time, the small locality appropriated as a burying- 
