Ferdinand von Mueller

Albany,

1

WA.

27/12/77.

To the honorable

Roger Goldsworthy, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary of West-Australia.

Sir

On the eve of my departure from West-Australia, it is my pleasurable duty, to express my deep gratitude to your Government for the interest evinced in my researches and the great support given to my recent travels in your colony.

2

The WA government had helped M by general support, but also by successfully requesting that the Victorian Government extend his leave to allow him to work on a report on WA forests (R. Goldsworthy to G. Berry, 21 November 1877, L77/12831, unit 1011, VPRS 3991/P inward registered correspondence, VA 475 Chief Secretary's Department, Public Record Office, Victoria . For itinerary of M's journey, see Dowe (2023). On 21 December 1877, P. Furlong, Superintendent of Police at Albany reported to W. Finlay, Sub-Inspector of Police, that M had arrived in Albany on 20 December, and departed the next day to the west 'to inspect the Timber & make some collection'; M was accompanied by George Maxwell and a 'native assistant' whose name was not given (Cons 129, no. 25/644, State Records Office of Western Australia, Perth). He had returned to Albany by 24 December; see M to W. Thiselton Dyer, 24 December 1877.

May I beg of you to convey particularly to his Excellency General Sir Harry Ord, the Governor, and also to his Honor Colonel Harvest, the previously acting Governor, the expressions of my grateful acknowledgment for the aid, directed to be afforded to me during my stay in West-Australia through the public Departments. I am, Sir, also under great obligations to yourself, to the hon. the Commissioner of Crownlands, the Chief Superintendent of the police-Department and the Deputy Surveyor General for fostering so greatly my phytologic investigations since I arrived in West Australia; I was thus enabled to travel over a far greater extent of your territory during the several weeks of my itinerations in West Australia, than I could otherwise have carried out. The officers of the police-Department, whether the local superiors in charge or the guides respectively obtained, have all striven to facilitate my work to the utmost in their power, which I wish hereby specially to acknowledge, the Chief Commissioner, Capt. Smith, having made powerful arrangements to speed my progress.

3

For example, Smith wrote to on 29 November 1877 to the sub-inspector at Bunbury, W. Wisbey, that he was to make arrangements for ‘some constable to accompany [M] from Bunbury to Bridgetown and across to Albany’, using the police trap and horses that were to be returned to Perth after M departed from Albany. On 8 December, Wisbey in turn instructed Constable Monger to accompany M to Bridgetown, from where Constable Bovell would conduct him to Albany (Cons 129, no. 25/645, State Records Office of Western Australia, Perth).

Again Mr John Forrest went personally with me to beyond York and I obtained much information from his extensive experiences as an explorer. Indeed if anything was needed to add to my great desire of revisiting your colony for still further extending my researches, it would be the universal attention, which I experienced from all officers of the Government, with whom I came in contact, to render my movements in West Australia comparatively easy to myself and most fruitful to my objects, and in this desire all settlers have shared, whom I met in the progress of my journeys.

After my return to Melbourne, and when again at the command of all my working material, I shall commence to furnish some data on the scientific aspect of the timber resources of your colony and on some other objects of vegetable wealth of this country, by which means I trust to offer some slight tribute in return for the unexpected advantages, which I have enjoyed through the generous action of the West Australian Government.