As the reader will have understood, I wrote, in the year 1843, to Lord
Stanley, the then colonial minister, volunteering my services to conduct
an expedition into Central Australia. It appeared to his Lordship as well
as to Sir John Barrow, to whom Lord Stanley referred my report, that the
plan I had proposed was too extensive, and it was therefore determined to
adopt a more modified one, and to limit the resources of the expedition
and the objects it was to keep in view, to a certain time, and to the
investigation of certain facts. After expressing his opinion as to the
magnitude of the undertaking I had contemplated, "There is, however,"
says Sir J. Barrow, in a minute to the Secretary of State, "a portion of
the continent of Australia, to which he (Captain Sturt) adverts, that may
be accomplished, and in a reasonable time and at a moderate expense.
"He says, if a line be drawn from lat. 29 degrees 30 minutes and long.
146 degrees, N.W., and another from Mount Arden due north, they will meet
a little to the northward of the tropic, and there, I will be bound to
say, a fine country will be discovered. On what data he pledges himself
to the discovery of this fine country is not stated. It may, however, be
advisable to allow Mr. Sturt to realize the state of this fine country.
"This, however, is not to be done by pursuing the line of the Darling to
the latitude of Moreton Bay, which would lead him not far from the
eastern coast, where there is nothing of interest to be discovered, nor
does it appear advisable to pursue the Darling to the point to which he
and Major Mitchell have already been, for this reason.
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