Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here see 'Dr Leichhardt (Correspondence respecting proposed expedition in search of)', Journal of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, Session 1865, vol. XII, pp. 403-4 (B65.06.23). M's letter and the accompanying documents were laid on the table of the Legislative Council on 20 June 1865 (see Empire, 21 June 1865, p. 5) and on the same day were ordered to be printed.

Melbourne Botanic Garden,

22/5/65

Sir,

I am honored by the ladies of the Leichhardt's Search Committee with the request of transmitting to you the bye-following letter of their dignified president.

2

Eliza Bromby. Bromby's letter, likewise dated 22 May 1865, was accompanied by a copy of the ladies' committee's circular (M. Bunny et al. to J. McCulloch, 8 March 1865 (in this edition as M65-03-08)), the text of which was printed immediately following M's letter.

The text of M's lecture that was referred to in the ladies' circular was printed next (see B65.02.01), followed by the report on the finding of white men's graves (see B65.14.05). Several other items were also printed: an extract from the Bendigo evening news, 17 May 1865, appealing for donations; G. Lang to M, 20 April 1865; Eliza Bromby's cover letter to Cowper as Colonial Secretary of NSW and another to him dated 31 May saying that the Victorian Government had promised some funding; and finally a telegram from Bromby dated 2 June saying that the South Australian Government had also committed funds to the expedition.

I carry out this request with so much greater pleasure, as I have witnessed your generous disposition in rewarding the distinguished services of the venerable Rev. W. B. Clarke;

3

In 1861, the New South Wales Government awarded Clarke £3,000 for the part he had played in the discovery of payable gold deposits in the colony.

and as I am convinced that it was through your feeling sympathy and powerful decision that the last search for poor Leichhardt, by A. C. Gregory,

4

In 1858 Gregory led an expedition for the NSW Government that searched unsuccessfully for traces of Leichhardt in the channel country of south-west Qld.

was instituted. This consciousness, however, should lead me, perhaps least of all, to implore your assistance on behalf of the noble ladies who mean to clear up Leichhardt's fate, and to step before you; for New South Wales has twice expended gubernatorial fund in prosecuting the search for the great scientific traveller;

5

In addition to funding Gregory's 1858 expedition, the NSW Government had earlier, in 1851-2, funded a search expedition in central Qld led by Hovenden Hely.

and your Government, moreover, has with magnanimity granted to the poor mother of the missing explorer, an annuity which placed her beyond bodily want in the evening of her age.

6

In 1854 the NSW Government agreed to pay Leichhardt's mother a lifetime annuity; see Sydney morning herald, 31 August 1854, p. 4.

Nevertheless, I venture to call on behalf of my lost countryman and scientific colleague — on behalf of the man to whom I am united by the bond of Australian exploration, on you, as the head of the Government of the country from whence he set out, not to allow the toilsome efforts of the Melbourne ladies unaided. Their expedition is likely to reveal the fate of the party, since new traces are found of their movement. The command will be intrusted to a thoroughly safe and efficient man,

7

Duncan McIntyre.

who, moreover, will understand the high duties devolving on him, and will appreciate the certainty that the whole intellectual world will follow with deep interest his movements. But beyond the claims of humanity, I can advance for the ladies' enterprise that of great practical importance and utility. To a clear-seeing statesman like yourself, it will be but too apparent that, with exploration, settlement will be advanced, and with the spread of settled habitations, the commerce of centres of populations and metropolitan localities especially. The thousands which, in cold and starvation, were carried off during the last severe winter in your own native country,

8

The Colonial Secretary of New South Wales at the time M wrote was Charles Cowper, who was of English descent. It seems likely that M is alluding to the high death rates in England in the very cold winter of 1864/5; English press comments on the Registrar General's quarterly reports for the periods ending 31 December 1864 and 31 March 1865 included 'A sever and protracted winter, with scarlatina and fever, swelled the mortuary returns' and the monthly average temperatures for the quarter were lower than for the previous 25 years (Bury and Norwich post and Suffolk herald, 9 May 1865, supplement).

might all have lived had they been brought to our shores for employment in newly inhabited settlements. The party to be fitted out by the ladies will, moreover, traverse from the Darling

9

Darling River, NSW.

northward, and thereby even throw additional light on the interior of the territory over which you and your Government rule. We all feel that Queensland — in which almost every mountain system and conflux of rivers speaks of Leichhardt — would bear the main share of the expenditure of this noble philanthropic work; and indeed, support of it has been offered to the ladies. But several thousand pounds will be needed to equip and maintain a party for two years; and as the calls on the revenue of that young Colony must be multifarious, the aid of the other Australian Governments is invoked by the fair apostles of Leichhardt's cause. South Australia, with its usual generosity, has pledged itself to the support of this expedition already. If you allow me to add to the advocacy of this appeal of the ladies, it would be — that whatever you and your honored colleagues may be pleased to do, may be done immediately, in order that the services of Mr. M'Intyre, who is designated for the command of the Ladies' Expedition, may not be lost, nor the season most advantageous for bringing the dromedaries to the Leichhardt River.

10

Qld.

The expedition will be strictly one of search, and Mr. M'Intyre has, even beyond his assurance, offered guarantees to that effect. The ladies are actively engaged in obtaining private contributions, and will continue to solicit for such as long as the enterprise lasts. They have laid their case before Her Majesty and several other crowned ladies of Europe,

11

Queen Victoria donated £100 to the fund; see M to G. Carey, 23 July 1866.

before many ladies of wealth and rank abroad, before many unions of science. But all the accumulating aid thus derived for such a cosmopolitan enterprise will never be superabundant; in the same degree as the means increase, the efficiency of the search must also be augmented; and it is quite possible that the search, should Leichhardt not have fallen near the Flinders River,

12

Qld.

will require to be extended over several years. If so, however, it will then carry out the great object for which poor Leichhardt risked, and probably lost his life — to map the main features of the great western portion of the interior of the continent — an object which stands yet undone as one of the highest problems of modern geography before us. It Britain sends out its navigators again to traverse the North Pole, assuredly Australia should be stimulated to have the geographical map of its great, rich and hospitable territory completed; and it will reflect credit of the most luminous and lasting kind on all those who will engage in the accomplishment of this great object, so great, so good, so recommendable to our young nation.

Allow me, Honorable Sir, to remain, with the assurance of my profound veneration, —