Towards the end of the year 1845, an expedition was projected to discover a passage towards the nearest part of the Indian Ocean westward of Torres Straits. A trade in horses, required to mount the Indian cavalry, had commenced between India and New South Wales, and the dangerous navigation of the straits proving disadvantageous to this new branch of commerce, it was desired to establish an overland route from Sydney to the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. It was still more desirable, or was thought so, to unite Australia by such a route with India, as India was already united to England by steam communication. In 1845 the Legislative Council of New South Wales voted £1000 towards the expense of such an expedition, and this vote, being referred to the home government by Sir George Gipps for its approval, received it in the course of the year; and the Legislative Council then increased the vote to £2000, and appointed the veteran explorer, Sir Thomas Mitchell, to head the expedition. The governor, who was himself an engineer, and a man of restless activity, appeared desirous to lay down the plan of the expedition himself, and thus, it was supposed, to claim in some degree the honour of it, but Mitchell was not a man to act so much on other persons' plans as on his own, and he succeeded in obtaining, not only the conduct of the expedition, but its projection.