In this letter he enumerates the qualities that he considers necessary in a follower:-- "Activity, good humour, sound moral principle, elasticity of mind and body, and perfect willingness to obey my orders, even though given harshly...I have been extremely unfortunate in the choice of my former companions." The last remark is an unworthy one, and of course applies to the companions of his second expedition.

He does not include a knowledge of open-air life amongst his qualifications, nor the needful bushmanship; and apparently in Leichhardt's opinion, a useless man of good moral principle would be as acceptable to an explorer as a good bushman of doubtful morality.

It causes one to inquire whether the devoted men who toiled for Sturt, private soldiers and prisoners of the Crown, were men of sound moral principle?
This extract affords an insight into Leichhardt's failures.

He wanted only those men who would blindly and ignorantly obey and believe in him.

For a man of Leichhardt's temperament, such men were not to be found: he had missed the fairy gift at birth -- all the essentials of good leadership.
Stuart Russell, in his Genesis of Queensland, cites his shrewd old stockman's opinion of Dr.Leichhardt, as he was just before his first trip.