Voyage of the Fly volume 1 page 302.) ITS ADVANTAGES.
The beneficial results to be looked for were such a settlement to be formed would be: 1.

A port of refuge would be afforded to the crews of vessels wrecked in Torres Strait, and its approaches, who otherwise must make for Booby Island, and there await the uncertainty of being picked up by some passing vessel, or even attempt in the boats to reach Coupang in Timor, a distance of 1100 miles further.

And now that the settlement at Port Essington has been abandoned the necessity for such a place of refuge is still greater.
2.

Passing vessels might be supplied with water and other refreshments, also stores, such as anchors, etc., which last are frequently lost during the passage of the Strait.
3.

The knowledge of the existence of such a post would speedily exercise a beneficial influence over our intercourse with the natives of Torres Strait, and induce them to refrain from a repetition of the outrages which they have frequently committed upon Europeans; the little trade in tortoiseshell which might be pushed in the Strait (as has frequently been done before by small vessels from Sydney and even from Hong Kong) would no longer be a dangerous one--and protection would be afforded to the coaling depot for steamers at Port Albany.* (*Footnote.