Ferdinand von Mueller

Downing Street

24th April 1861.

1

MS black-edged.

Sir,

With reference to your letter of the 28th of February last,

2

Letter not found.

I am directed by the Duke of Newcastle to acquaint you that His Grace brought under the notice of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury the considerations in favor of publishing an Australian Flora, in the same shape as the recently published Flora of Hong Kong,

3

Bentham (1861a).

at the expense of this Country, but that adverting to the wealth of the several Colonies in Australia, and to the sense which they have shown of the interests of science and commerce, their Lordships have stated that they think that any works of the proposed description may be left to the enterprise of the Colonies themselves, and that there are no sufficient reasons to warrant their being undertaken at the cost of this Country.

The Duke of Newcastle does not feel that he would be justified in questioning the conclusion thus arrived at by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury as the proper guardians of the Imperial Exchequer.

At some future day the several answers received from all the British Colonies on their collections of Natural History, and on the extent to which they have yet been published will be carefully reviewed, and the question can then be considered whether it will be advisable to put the Australian Governments in possession of the work which has been published for Hong Kong, and to ascerain whether they would be disposed to authorize a similar publication for Australia at the expense of the Colonial Treasuries.

Sir William Hooker

&c &c &c