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Mission House, Wellington Valley 
Jan. 21, 1839 
Dear Sir,
The Colonial Government having decided to establish a Town on the Mission Land (as the Surveyor has measured off about 1000 Acres for that purpose.) I beg leave to address the Society, on the supposition of them forming another Mission. I would first just mention that I wrote to the Society in August last. In that letter I made known to them my suspicions that the Colonial Government would eventually take the Land from us. Since the date of my letter the Rev J. Gunther has made some important communications to you respecting the Colonial Government and the Mission which makes it unnecessary for me to write on that subject. I wish to give merely my own thoughts and feelings relating to the removal of the Mission. And I do so with the greater confidence from the liberty given, or rather the wish expressed by the Rev. W. Jowett, in a letter to me dated 17 August last, the receipt of which I have gratefully to acknowledge. That the Mission must be removed is quite certain. It can never be carried on in so close a connection with a Town. 
There are several things to be considered in forming another Mission. First, the Situation. It should be were there is plenty of water and the Land fertile. Also were the Natives are most numerous. Secondly the Land should be a large tract, not less than 5 miles each way from the Mission Station. The Land should also be secured to the Society, for the use of the Mission as long as they should wish to keep it for that purpose. Thirdly, as a Mission amongst the Natives of this Country is attended with so much secular labour it appears necessary that the Society should have a large number of Lay Missionaries to commence another Mission, and avoid the necessity of employing those wretched characters, the convicts of the Colony. But I must again advert to the situation of the supposed Mission. We have thought it advisable that the Mission should be removed down the River if re-established at all. But my opinion is altered on that subject for these reasons. First, unless we removed 60 or 100 Miles; lower down, the Natives are not numerous, and even at that distance they will soon cease to be, if they diminish as they have done in other places. (For it is a remarkable fact that 12 months ago, at a place 30 Miles down the River, the Natives, it is said, were numerous. Now there is scarcely one at that distance. It may be asked, what is the cause? I think it to be this. The great increase of population enables the Settlers to extend their Cattle and Sheep Stations farther every year: wherever they locate themselves they drive away the Kangaroos and Opossums, on which the Natives chiefly subsist. The Natives must therefore either pine away and die or else move into the interior. My other reason is this: The great additional expense of obtaining our Supplies from Sydney. 
If I may be allowed to give my opinion respecting the situation of another Mission. I should propose it being a few Miles from the sea shore in an unlocated country, either in the South between Port Phillip and South Australia, or on the East side of this Country, a little to the Northward of Moreton Bay. At the latter Place there is a Mission established under the auspices of Dr Lang of the Scots Church in this Colony. The Land to the South is most suitable for Agriculture. And again unlikely to be soon located. The Natives are every where