Ferdinand von Mueller

Government Bungalow

British New Guinea.

5 Sep 1887

To the President of the R.G.S. Australia, Melbourne Branch.

Sir,

The report, now in progress, on my movements in New Guinea, will be laid before you as soon as completed. It cannot be presented, however, till you have completed the description of the Botanical Collection. Your kind promise of doing this with all possible speed after the 1st of June, leaves me in expectation of the descriptions & identifications of the remaining plants by every mail. If you cannot see yr way to complete the descriptions of the plants, they will at once be proceeded with in London, where the collection is, of course, somewhat more complete.

I regret that no answer has reached me to the two letters I last addressed to you.

1

Letters not found.

Having produced to the Central Branch of the Society in Sydney not only the correspondence with its own President, but with yourself — forming a continuous record from June 1885 to August 1886 — the Society has placed on its minutes a resolution absolving me from the charges made against me It is satisfactory to me that N.S. Wales had admitted the accuracy of my statements, & done me justice

I beg to draw yr attention to & to ask the retraction of the extremely inaccurate statements made by Mr Macdonald at the Council meeting (when Mr Cuthbertson was appointed to lead the Society's Exped.) & communicated to the Argus . It is strange & surprising to see them again re-iterated by a Council of Gentlemen after the very positive affirmation I verbally gave the Council as to their absolute want of truth.

2

Macdonald’s report of which Forbes complains appeared in the Argus, 24 May 1887, p. 6, under the sub-heading 'Mr H. O. Forbes Former Expedition', and included references to statements alleged to have been made to the Council at the meeting that Forbes had attended on 23 April.

The Proc. R.G.S. London under the authority of which they are given say any thing but what Mr Macdonald tries so hopelessly to prove. The statement re Sir E. Strickland not having consented to my interpretation, is also without foundation I have his letter now before me under his own hand to the contrary.

Your Council as an act of simple justice owes to me an apology such as no honourable man hesitates to give to another when he has wronged him & finds his mistake