supplies are calculated, or, on the other hand, a less degree of the
supposed complexity in the ground you will have traversed, along with the
energy and diligence with which we rely on you for conducting these
important services, may enable you to complete them within that period.
In this latter case you will return to the Northern coast of New Holland,
and selecting such parts of it as may afford useful harbours of retreat,
or which may appear to comprise the mouths of any streams of magnitude,
you will employ your spare time in such discoveries as may more or less
tend to the general object of the expedition.

Before your departure from Sydney you will have learnt that His Majesty's
Government has established a new settlement at Port Essington, or
somewhere on the North coast of New Holland; and before you finally
abandon that district you will visit this new colony, and contribute by
every means in your power to its resources and its stability.

We have not, in the concluding part of these Orders, pointed out the
places or the periods at which you are to replenish your provisions,
because the latter must depend on various circumstances which cannot be
foreseen, and the former may be safely left to your own decision and
prudence; but when you have been three years on your ground, unless some
very important result were to promise itself from an extension of that
period, you will proceed to the Island of Mauritius, in order to complete
your stock of water and provisions, and then, touching at either side of
the Cape of Good Hope, according to the season, and afterwards at
Ascension, you will make the best of your way to Spithead, and report
your arrival to our Secretary.

Directions will be forwarded to the commanders-in-chief at the Cape of
Good Hope and in the East Indies, and to the governors or