Vienna, 20 July 1782. His Majesty the Emperor has ordered Councillor von Born, one of our Monarchy’s most learned savants, to put forward two subjects experienced in Natural History, to send to America in order to make new discoveries there. Mr. Heidinger, Adjunct in the Imperial Natural History Cabinet, and Doctor Maerter, Lecturer in Natural History at the Theresianum, were presented and approved; also, a Gardener and a Painter were included with them. They will go by Cape Horn to Otaheiti, from thence to Sandwich Island, to the American Coast on the North side of California, and finally to China. They both have knowledge of all areas of Natural History; it can therefore be assured that their discoveries will be of much greater ambit and usefulness than all that have been made hitherto, since Banks, Solander, and Forster looked at few other Objects of Natural History than Botany. At the end of August, they will sail on the Ship "Comte de Cobenzell".