FL4651286

[centred] address
[on right] Parliament Houses
Melbourne

23 Aug^t 1875

My dear Sir William

I am very much obliged to you
for your kind letter. I wrote a
short note in reply and gave it to Sir
W H F Mitchell, the President of our Legislative
Council who has gone to Sydney for a
week or two, and whom I have
recommended to see Camden if he can.

He takes his daughters with him.

I am glad to find that you are well
pleased at my undertaking the task
of writing a general history of Australia.

I certainly should not have
undertaken it if I had not been urged
to do so. The verification of one's
facts is an intricate and difficult
thing, because even a careful writer
sometimes accepts a fact from an
inaccurate one, and thus one is apt to be
misled. The only remedy is to trace
every statement to a fountain head.

I must thank you very much for