When at
Van Diemen's Land, Captain Osborn was so much taken with the beauty and
fertility of the country, and perhaps not so well inclined to go to sea
again after such danger as he had incurred in the last voyage, that he
resolved to purchase land and settle there. He did so, and had already
stocked his farm with cattle, and had gone round to Sydney in a
schooner to await the arrival of a large order from England which he
had sent for, when the brig arrived and reported the existence of some
white people on the small island, and also that they had hoisted a flag
with the name Pacific worked on it.
Captain Osborn, hearing this, went to the master of the brig, and
questioned him. He found the latitude and longitude of the island to be
not far from that of the ship when she was deserted, and he was now
convinced that, by some miracle, the Seagrave family had been
preserved. He therefore went to the Governor of New South Wales, and
made him acquainted with the facts which had been established, and the
Governor instantly replied, that the government armed schooner was at
his service, if he would himself go in quest of his former shipmates.
Inconvenient as the absence at that time was to Captain Osborn, he at
once acquiesced, and in a few days the schooner sailed for her
destination.
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