This drawing shows the 'Beagle', barque-rigged, on her third survey voyage, 1837-43, in Australian waters: it was probably made at or near Sydney in 1842. The ship had sailed from England in summer 1837 under Commander John Clements Wickham. He had been a lieutenant on the second 'Beagle' survey voyage in South American waters (led by Robert Fitzroy and with Charles Darwin as naturalist). The Australian expedition second-in-command and assistant surveyor was Lieutenant John Lort Stokes, who had been a midshipman on the first 'Beagle' voyage (in which Fitzroy was commander of the second part only) then mate and assistant surveyor on the second. In May 1839, operating with Commander Owen Stanley in the 'Britomart', 'Beagle' began a survey of the Arafura Sea but in March 1841, after Wickham fell ill and resigned ashore at Sydney, Stokes took over command from him to complete the Australian work and then took 'Beagle' back to England in 1843. Oswald Brierly had left England in 1841 on a voyage round the world as staff artist to Benjamin Boyd in the schooner 'Wanderer' but this ended at Sydney in July 1842, where Boyd settled. He became involved in founding Boydtown, a new settlement nearby and engaged Brierly as manager of a fleet of whaling ships. By 1848 Boyd's business had failed and Brierly joined Stanley in the 'Rattlesnake' on two more Admiralty surveying expeditions, to the Barrier Reef, and to the Louisiade archipelago and the south coast of New Guinea. He later went to New Zealand and only returned to England in 1851. The vessel shown to the left may be the Colonial cutter 'Vansittart', which was lent to the 'Beagle' expedition by Sir John Franklin, then Governor of Tasmania, to assist in the survey of the Bass Strait. This is also apparently shown in the better-known drawing of 'Beagle' at Sydney in 1841, done by Stanley from the 'Britomart': see PAD8969. The as yet unexplained variance between the two images is that Stanley's drawing shows 'Beagle' wearing a red ensign, as one would expect of a Royal Naval vessel on independent commission, but its ensign here is blue. If accurately recorded by Brierly it may indicate a courtesy being shown to the temporary presence in the harbour of a Royal Navy flag officer of the blue squadron. The 'Vansittart' ensign is red in both drawings, probably because technically a merchant rather than Royal Naval cutter, though commanded by a naval mate. The drawing is inscribed by Brierly in pencil, upper right, 'H M S BEAGLE'.