A letter from the Colonial Office having recently apprised their
Lordships that it is the intention of her Majesty's Government to form a
new settlement at Hervey Bay, and having requested that it may be duly
examined with that view, your first undertaking, after leaving Sydney,
should be to repair to that place, and to make an efficient survey of the
whole bay, extending it down through the channel into Wide Bay, and
marking the best anchorages, the most convenient landing-places, and the
several parts where water may be found. And as it appears that Colonel
Barney, R.E. is engaged in the same inquiry, it will be prudent to act in
concert with him, and to give him a copy of such parts of it as may suit
his purposes.

In your way to this district, and indeed on every part of the shores of
Australia, you should lose no fair opportunity of verifying the
positions--of multiplying the soundings--and of improving the smaller
details of the coast as laid down by Captain P.P. King in his excellent
Survey, but which he had not time or means to effect with the same
accuracy that will be in your power. By carrying on this system of
correction and improvement in our present charts from Hervey Bay along
the narrow navigation which is generally known by the name of the Inshore
Passage, between the coast and the Barrier Reefs, a very great benefit
will be conferred on those masters of vessels who would be the more
readily inclined to adopt that channel, if certain parts of it were so
clearly delineated, and the soundings so spread on either side of the
tracks, that they could sometimes continue under sail during the night.
However necessary it was, and is, to contribute as much as possible to
the safety of those vessels who choose the outer voyage by the Barrier
Reefs, it is not the less our duty to facilitate the navigation of the
Inshore Passage to all vessels who prefer its tranquillity and security
to the risk of the former; and your labours for the accomplishment of