Recruiting, therefore, in this colony for the Bengal army, being a measure that required some consideration, and which the governor thought should first have obtained the sanction of administration, he determined to wait the result of a communication on the subject with the secretary of state, before he gave it his countenance.  At the same time he meant to recommend it in a certain degree, as it was evident that many good recruits might be taken, without any injury to the interests of the settlement, from that class of our people who, being no longer prisoners, declined labouring for government, and, without any visible means of subsisting, lived where and how they chose.

The Britannia, in her passage to Batavia, anchored in Gower’s Harbour, New Ireland (on the 16th of July), where she completed her wood and water, and sailed on the 23rd.  On the 2nd of September following she arrived at Batavia; and it appearing to Mr. Raven (as before observed) but too probable that he should be detained by the government if he ventured to wait even for their determination respecting supplying the provisions, he sailed on the 7th for Bengal, arriving in the Ganges on the 12th of October.  Not being able to procure at Calcutta the full quantity of provisions that his ship could contain, he sailed for Madras on the 1st of February, where he anchored on the 15th.  There he completed his cargo, and sailed, with five homeward-bound Indiamen, on the 27th of the same month.  His passage to this country was long and tedious, owing to the prevalence of light and contrary winds; but we were all well pleased to be in possession of the comforts he brought us from that part of the world, and to congratulate him on his personal escape from the sickly and now inimical port of Batavia, as well as from the cruisers of the enemy, with which he had reason to suppose he might fall in on the Indian coast.

On his return from this his second voyage to India, Mr. Raven gave it as his opinion, that the passage to be pursued from New South Wales to India depended wholly upon the season in which the ship might leave Port Jackson.  From the month of November to April, or rather from October to the beginning of March, which ought to be the latest period that any ship should attempt a northern passage, he recommended making Norfolk Island; and thence, passing between the Loyalty islands* and New Caledonia, to keep as nearly as circumstances would allow in the longitude of 165 degrees East; until the ship should reach the latitude of 8 degrees South; and then shape a course to cross the equator in 160 degrees East; after which the master should steer to the NW by N or NNW until in the latitude of 5 degrees 20 minutes or 5 degrees 30 minutes North; in which latitude Mr. Raven would run down his longitude, and pass the south end of Mindanao, and between that island and Bascelan; and thence through the straits of Banguey into the China Sea.  In running this passage, it would be necessary to pay attention to Mr. Dalrymple’s charts of those islands, etc. which Mr. Raven found very accurate.