He left Australia, hoping to obtain permission from the Dutch authorities at Timor to proceed to Papua, to take steps for being beforehand with the Australian expedition.

He reached the place with great difficulty, and he himself, and all his family, began to suffer severely from fever.

The Dutch governor told him that he might as well try to teach the monkeys as the Papuans, and the Dutch clergy gave him very little encouragement.

He remained in these strange and beautiful islands for several months, trying one Dutch governor after another, and always finding them civil but impenetrable; for, in fact, they could not believe that an officer in her Britannic Majesty's Navy could be purely actuated by missionary zeal, but thought that it concealed some political object.

They were not more gracious even to clergy of other nations.