14th, 1814; and subsequently removed him to the Elizabeth 74, Captain Edward Leveson Gower, from which ship he was paid off in June 1815.
In the beginning of 1817, among the numerous voyages of survey and discovery upon which a part of the navy of Great Britain was so honorably and so usefully employed, the unexplored coasts of Australia were not forgotten. An expedition for the purpose of completing the survey of its north and north-west coast was planned, under the joint direction of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to the command of which Lieutenant King had the honor of being appointed. The arrangements for providing him with a vessel and crew were made by the latter department.
On the 5th Feb., Lieutenant King received his appointment, together with an order for a passage in the hired transport Dick, then about to convey H.M. 48th regiment from Cork to New South Wales, where she arrived on the 3d September, after a passage from Ireland of twenty-two weeks, including a fortnight spent at Rio de Janeiro.
The vessel appropriated to Lieutenant King’s use was the Mermaid, a cutter of 84 tons burden, built of teak, and not quite twelve months old; her length was 56 feet; breadth of beam 18 feet 6 inches; and she did not, when deep-laden, draw more than 9 feet: the total number of her officers and crew was only eighteen, viz. Lieutenant King, commander; Messrs. Frederick Bedwell and John Septimus Roe, master’s-mates, both of whom had accompanied him from England; Mr. Allan Cunningham, botanical collector; twelve seamen, and two boys. In addition to this establishment, Lieutenant King accepted the proffered services of Boongaree, a Port Jackson native, who had formerly accompanied Captain Flinders in the Investigator, and also on a previous occasion in the Norfolk schooner.
The Mermaid could not be got ready to commence her interesting voyage until towards the end of December, when we find Lieutenant King steering for Bass’s Strait, with the intention of passing along the southern and western coasts,
