accrued.

As it seemed extremely probable that the course of events would not again
permit the Beagle to visit Port Essington, we naturally experienced some
regret on our departure, and were led to speculate, with interest, on its
future destiny. A young settlement, so remote and solitary, cannot fail
to awaken the liveliest sympathy in the voyager. How small soever may be
the circle of its present influence, the experience of the past teaches
us confidently to expect that wherever a knot of Englishmen locate
themselves, there are deposited the germs of future greatness. For Port
Essington, a sphere of action, of great extent and importance, appears
marked out by the hand of nature; though, to a careless observer,
unskilled in discerning the undeveloped capabilities of geographical
positions, it may appear in the light simply of an isolated military
post. And, certainly, whatever may be its actual resources, little or
nothing has, as yet, been done to ascertain them. We are still reduced to
base our opinions on conjecture and hypothesis; we know nothing of the
amount of commerce that might be carried on with the islands of the
Indian Archipelago--nothing of the productions of the mainland--nothing
of the extent to which colonization might be carried in the
neighbourhood. Without data of this kind it is impossible, with any
pretensions to accuracy, to estimate the probable future importance of
our settlement at Port Essington, the value of which does not depend on
the fertility of Cobourg Peninsula, any more than that of Gibraltar on
the productiveness of the land within the Spanish lines. Victoria, if we
regard its own intrinsic worth, might be blotted out of the list of our
possessions without any material detriment to our interests; but its
importance, as a commercial station, is incalculable. It is, indeed, to
the country behind--at present unvisited, unexplored, a complete terra
incognita--and to the islands within a radius of five hundred miles, that
we must look if we would form a correct idea of the value of Port
Essington to the Crown. At present it may seem idle, to some, to
introduce these distant places as elements in the discussion of such a
question; but no one who reflects on the power of trade to knit together
even more distant points of the earth, will think it visionary to suppose
that Victoria must one day--insignificant as may be the value of the
districts in its immediate neighbourhood--be the centre