In October 1845 the remains of the original party which had been there for seven years (including also a small detachment sent down from China) were relieved by a draft from England of two subalterns, an assistant-surgeon, and fifty-two rank and file of the Royal Marines, Captain Macarthur still remaining as commandant.
PORT ESSINGTON A MILITARY POST.
The Port Essington experiment I am afraid is to be regarded as a complete failure.

Yet it could not well have been otherwise.

It was never more than a mere military post, and the smallness of the party, almost always further lessened by sickness, was such that, even if judiciously managed, little more could be expected than that they should be employed merely in rendering their own condition more comfortable.

And now after the settlement has been established for eleven years, they are not even able to keep themselves in fresh vegetables, much less efficiently to supply any of Her Majesty's vessels which may happen to call there.
ADVANTAGES OF PORT ESSINGTON.
In order to develop the resources of a colony, always provided it possesses any such, surely something more is required than the mere presence of a party of soldiers, but it appears throughout, that Government were opposed to giving encouragement to the permanent settlement at Port Essington, of any of her Majesty's subjects.

It is well perhaps that such has been the case, as I can conceive few positions more distressing than that which a settler would soon find himself placed in were he tempted by erroneous and highly coloured reports of the productiveness of the place--and such are not wanting--to come there with the vain hopes of being able to raise tropical productions* for export, even with the assistance of Chinese or Malay labourers.