33054-002101

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Moreton Bay16'th April 1833 [underlined]

Dear Sir

Though I know You have too much business to admit of your attending to private letters, yet as there are some circum= stances connected with the pilot here, which I am unwilling to notice publicly, I trust you will excuse my taking this mode of making them known to you. - On finding it necessary to dismiss the former pilot here, as the salary is very small and the situation unpleasant and secluded, I had some diffic= culty in getting any one to accept of it. Edward King most positively refused having any thing to do with it, and the man who now holds it, only agreed to it on my promising that for the time he acted to which as I agreed voluntarily, I cannot object, though I never anticipated that eighteen months would have elapsed before his appointment was cancell'd or con= firmed so that in the event of his not being continued in

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in that situation I trust he will at all events be paid for the time he has acted, as I had no alternative at the moment but to incur the risk myself as now the chance of accidents to the Government vessels. As my time in News South Wales must now be short, I wish to get through it quietly and make no reports about any one, particularly when I may have been misinformed as in the present instance, but I am told that Mr Nicolson considering the pilot and seamen here under him, is annoyed at my interfering with them, and in some communications they have had with him, he gives as a reason for Morris not being confirmed in his appointment that I "have never written him a word on the subject." If you think ought to communicate with him on such matters, I am sure I shall do so with pleasure, but as he neither knows the men nor the circumstances under which they are placed the idea of writing him never struck me, till the man brought me that message, or probably I might have done so. - Report also says, true or false, that he is annoyed at my dismissing the pilot he appointed, (and to whom by the by he immedi= ately gave another situation,) that he is annoyed at my appointing another in place of his being requestcd to find one. I would willingly give him up the management of them with

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with all my heart but if people upset the discipline of the Settlement I must interfere, though most sincerely wish there was not a free man at the Settlement, for more particularly when their situations are not worth holding, one free man often gives more trouble that all the convicts put together. I have always thought the fewer officers and free men at a penal Settlement the better, and General Bourke need not fear my asking any that can be dispensed with.

May I beg leave to present my best compliments to Mrs Macleay and to return her many thanks for her present of the cheese which is a good specimen of Australian produce.

With many apologies for intruding on your valuable time

I am My dear Sir Your's faithfully (signed) J.O. Clunie

P. S. As the season for preserving bird skins was passing I hope I have done no great harm in occasionally employing a Prisoner to accompany my servants in collecting a few for a public Museum

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which I have sent to be forwarded to England without receiving an answer to my application in the 11'th Par of my letter of the 30'th June last.