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To His Excellency Lieutenant General

Ralph Darling, Captain General & Governor

in Chief in and over His Majesty's Territory

of New South Wales & its Dependencies,

&c ... &c ... &c.

May it please Your Excellency

With the most unfeigned respect for
your Excellency's person and authority, I humbly
presumed to submit to Your enlightened consider-
ation, an explanation due not only to your
Excellency's exalted rank and character, but also
to myself, of certain parts of my past conduct
which, I fear, have been misconstrued, and have
tended to shew me guilty of scandalous effontery
to the public, personal disrespect towards an
honorable gentleman, and a general contempt
of the executive Government.

On my abrupt dismisssal from the Colonial
Secretary's Office in 1826, I naturally begged of
Mr McLeay to assign a cause for such unexpected
and, as I believed, unmerited treatment. That
gentleman intimated that my having been twice
transported, rendered it improper to retain me in
the Office. It has been since suggested to me,
that the Memoirs of my Life erroneously said to
be [underlined] (published) by myself, had (as well they might)
done me serious injury. On this point, therefore,
I now, although somewhat late, earnestly beseech
your Excellency's attention to a short account of the
origin and ultimate appearance of the work in
question. In 1817, being employed as clerk of the
Store at Newcastle, the Commandant (Lieutenant
Thompson) having heard of my extraordinary
adventures, requested I would write an account of
them, to gratify his curiosity, promising as a

[on right] gentle- [gentleman]