FAITHFUL SERVANT,

WILLIAM WILLS.
JANUARY, 1863.

PREFACE.

A life terminating before it had reached its meridian, can scarcely
be expected to furnish materials for an extended biography. But the
important position held by my late son, as second in command in
what is now so well-known as the Burke and Wills Exploring
Expedition across the Island Continent of Australia; the
complicated duties he undertook as Astronomer, Topographer,
Journalist, and Surveyor; the persevering skill with which he
discharged them, suggesting and regulating the march of the party
through a waste of eighteen hundred miles, previously untrodden by
European feet; his courage, patience, and heroic death; his
self-denial in desiring to be left alone in the desert with
scarcely a hope of rescue, that his companions might find a chance
for themselves;--these claims on public attention demand that his
name should be handed down to posterity in something more than a
mere obituary record, or an official acknowledgment of services.

A truthful, though brief, memoir of my son's short career, may
furnish a stimulating example, by showing how much can be
accomplished in a few years, when habits of prudence and industry
have been acquired in early youth. He fell a victim to errors not
originating with himself; but he resigned his life without a
murmur, having devoted it to science and his country. His death,
with the circumstances attending it, furnishes an application of