Amsterdam, and of proceeding to Van Diemen's Land by whatever course shall appear to you best calculated for inferring the position of the magnetic pole.
At Van Diemen's Land you are to communicate with Lieutenant Governor Sir John Franklin, who will have been instructed to prepare instruments for the third magnetic observatory, which you are to establish in the most advantageous position, and to place in charge of an officer, with a sufficient number of assistants, to enable him to continue uninterruptedly the observations proposed to be made during the period of your absence, making such provision for their victualling and lodging as appears to be most convenient, and not inconsistent with the Naval Regulations.
Having brought this observatory into active operation, you will lose no time in proceeding to Sydney, which, according to the views contained in the before-mentioned Report, will be a station eminently fitted for the determination of all the magnetic elements, and which will hereafter be the centre of reference for every species of local determination.
The remaining winter months may be advantageously employed in visiting New Zealand and the adjacent islands, and in obtaining there as many series of observations as the time will allow, in order to enable you to judge with greater precision of the course to be adopted in the following summer; but taking care to return to Van Diemen's Land by the end of October, to refit Her Majesty's ships, and to prepare them for a voyage to the southward.
In the following summer, your provisions having been completed and your crews refreshed, you will proceed direct to the southward, in order to determine the position of the magnetic pole, and even to attain to it if possible, which it is hoped will be one of the remarkable and creditable results of this expedition. In the execution, however, of this arduous part of the service entrusted to your
