purpose as to enter here on a deduction from the data to which I have alluded, it cannot be denied that, in the words of an eloquent writer in Blackwood, “a great experiment in the faculty of renovation in the human character, has found its field in the solitudes of this vast continent:  that the experiment has succeeded to a most unexampled and unexpected degree:  and that the question is now finally decided between severity and discipline.”  What else remains, what great designs and unfathomed purposes, are yet reserved to grace this distant theatre, I pause not now to guess.  The boldest conjecture would probably fall very far short of the truth.  It is sufficient for us to know that Providence has entrusted to England a new empire in the Southern seas.  Nor can we doubt that there as elsewhere throughout the various regions of the habitable globe, the same indomitable spirit which has achieved so many successes, will accompany those whom heaven has appointed as pioneers, in that march of moral regeneration and sound improvement long promised to the repentant children of earth.

QUARANTINE ESTABLISHMENT.

We were sorry to find that it had been necessary to form a quarantine establishment in the North Harbour, in consequence of the diseases brought to the country by emigrant ships.  A number of tombstones, whitening the side of a hill, mark the locality, and afford a melancholy evidence of the short sojourn in the land of promise which has been vouchsafed to some.

EXPEDITION TO PORT ESSINGTON.

It not being the favourable season for commencing operations in Bass Strait, we remained at Sydney until November, and embraced the opportunity of clearing out the ship.  Our stay was undiversified with incidents, and it may as well therefore be briefly passed over.  Among the few occurrences worth mentioning, was the departure of the expedition sent out to form a settlement at Port Essington on the northern coast.  Its object was simply military occupation, it having been deemed advisable about that time to assert practically the supremacy of Great Britain over the Continent by occupying some of its most prominent points; but as soon as its destination became known in the colony, several persons came forward as volunteer-settlers, and expressed the greatest anxiety to be allowed to accompany the expedition.  Their views extended to the establishment of a trade with the islands in the Arafura sea; and certainly they would have been far more likely to draw forth the resources of the country, than a garrison, whose supplies are brought to them from a distance, whose presence holds out no inducement to traders, and who are not impelled by any anxiety for their own support to discover the riches of the soil.  For these reasons the determination of Government not to throw open the lands, and their refusal to hold out the promise of protection to the individuals who expressed a desire to accompany the expedition, are greatly to be regretted.  In a