On 21 August 1828, Stirling and his friend Thomas Moody wrote a letter to Under-Secretary Robert Hay in which they offered to form an association of private capitalists who would settle Australia using their own money, observing the 'principles' that had been observed by William Penn in the settlement of Pennsylvania. Moody had the fervent support of Tories in Parliament, who had recently responded to his report to Parliament on slavery in the West Indies, by commending his 'great experience in the control of labour, both slave and free, both African and European, in garrison, and in the field'. He had previously offered advice to James Mangles regarding the settlement of the Swan River Colony at minimal cost to the British Government.