As these voyages were undertaken rather for the correction of the observations of former navigators on the bearings and exact positions of the coasts, and at the same time to extend the knowledge of the natural history of the continent, than for geographical discovery, they will not demand any extended notice in this work. They contain a mass of information of the extremest value to seamen and naturalists, and must necessarily be consulted at large in the various works of these voyagers.

In 1817, Captain Philip P. King, of the royal navy, was appointed by the British Government, to continue the examination of the north, north-west, and western shores of Australia, which the seizure and detention of Captain Flinders by the French Governor De Caen, in the Mauritius, was supposed to have left unfinished. In the instructions issued to him by the Admiralty, he was directed to receive into his service Frederick Bedwell and John Septimus Roe, two young gentlemen, likely to be of much assistance to him. To sail to Sydney, and there take a proper vessel, and to proceed to the exanimation of the coasts of New South Wales from Arnhem Bay westward, and southward as far as North West Cape, including the bay called Van Diemen's Bay, the cluster of islands called the Rosemary Islands, and the inlets behind, and in his way out, or returning, to examine the coast between Cape Leeuwin and Cape Grosselin, as laid down in M. De Freysinet's chart, and to visit the ranges of coast, which had not been visited or accurately laid down by the French navigators.