The Beagle commissioned.
Her former career.
Her first Commander.
Instructions from the Admiralty and the Hydrographer.
Officers and Crew.
Arrival at Plymouth.
Embark Lieutenants Grey and Lushington's Exploring Party.
Chronometric Departure.
Farewell glance at Plymouth.
Death of King William the Fourth.

For more than half a century, the connection between Great Britain and
her Australian possessions has been one of growing interest; and men of
the highest eminence have foreseen and foretold the ultimate importance
of that vast continent, over which, within the memory of living man, the
roving savage held precarious though unquestioned empire.

Of the Australian shores, the North-western was the least known, and
became, towards the close of the year 1836, a subject of much
geographical speculation. Former navigators were almost unanimous in
believing that the deep bays known to indent a large portion of this
coast, received the waters of extensive rivers, the discovery of which
would not only open a route to the interior, but afford facilities for
colonizing a part of Australia, so near our East Indian territories, as
to render its occupation an object of evident importance.

His Majesty's Government therefore determined to send out an expedition
to explore and survey such portions of the Australian coasts as were
wholly or in part unknown to Captains Flinders and King.