4. can be Can be more easily dispensed with in the course of the next month or two thereafter, or the plans for future land Sales and Public Works are in such an advanced state of forwardness that they can be Submitted to His Excellency almost immediately, and the principal part of the work started before my departure. The state of my health is such that I am convinced nothing but a radical change of climate will renovate my strength, and enable me to continue the prosecution of my duties with Satisfaction to the Government or comfort to myself;
I have already remained in this climate too long without a change of air, and when I state that I have never been absent from the Colony six weeks but once, and that during a Service of twelve years, in which time almost all the civil work has been executed by me with considerable danger to my health from exposure to a tropical Sun, which has proved fatal in its effects to so many in my Department, I think His Excellency will consider my request for leave both needful and reasonable.
My now wish would be to leave next spring so as to arrive at a cooler trying season, then I should do by departing during this Autumn, but I have the greatest desire to arrange for the best discharge of my duties, and with as little inconvenience to the Government as possible; and being naturally interested in the extension and improvement of the Colony which has thus far risen under my hands; nothing but the satisfactory arrangement