I have now only to request that your lordships will do me the honour to believe, that in the liberty I have taken, I am prompted wholly by a sense of duty, and that I am, with the utmost respect,

My Lords,

-June_, 1792.

Your Lordship’s most obedient and devoted humble servant,

JOHN HUNTER.

* * * * *

LIEUTENANT KING’S JOURNAL.

The public owe an obligation, and the publisher a kindness, to Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Stephens, of the Admiralty, to whose charge Lieutenant King had committed his journal, for liberally allowing the free use of this intelligent manuscript, in order to the publication of such parts of it as might be supplementary in its notices to the foregoing narrative of Captain Hunter.

The journal of Lieutenant King, like the narrative of Captain Hunter, begins with the plan of a settlement on the coast of New South Wales, for the present banishment of convicts, in the hope of future benefit to the nation; and with the outfit of the ships which had been appointed for this uncommon expedition.  Like Captain Hunter, under whom he sailed in the Sirius, he conducts their little fleet from England to the Canaries; from these islands to the Brazils; from Rio de Janeiro to the Cape of Good Hope; recording such professional notices, and making such useful remarks, as occurred on a voyage, which being now perfectly known, could afford in the recital little diversity, and could furnish in the publication neither information nor amusement.

Of the Sirius, which was never more to return to the Thames, he tells the following anecdote:  “She was built in -the river_ for an east country ship; and in loading her, she took fire and was burnt down to her wales.  The government wanting a roomy vessel to carry stores abroad, in 1781, purchased her bottom, which was rebuilt with such stuff as, during the war, could be found.  She went two voyages as the Berwick store-ship; and without any repairs she was reported, when the present expedition was thought of, as fit for the voyage to New Holland, when she was named The Sirius.”  Experience, however, evinced, that she was altogether adequate to the service for which she was destined; and carried her crew safe through one of the most tremendous gales, on a lee shore, that the oldest seaman remembered.

Lieutenant King describes the Cape of Good Hope, of which so many accounts have been given.  Here was it determined, that with Governor Phillip and other officers, he was to change his ship from the Sirius to the Supply, an armed tender of one hundred and seventy tons:  but this measure was not executed till the fleet had sailed 352 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, when they yet had 5582 miles of an ocean to traverse, before they could expect to see the south cape of New Holland, the object of their hopes.  Soon after they had parted from their associates in the voyage, they were alarmed in the night with the cry of rocks under the lee bow: but having put the helm a-lee, they soon perceived, that the Supply had passed over two enormous whales, which gave her a shock that was felt by all.  Without any other accident, though they had heavy gales and a boisterous sea, they anchored at Botany-Bay on the 19th of January, 1788, after a voyage of thirty-seven weeks and a day, since their departure from England.