I'd have thought getting a claim on Australia would be more enticing, but I guess that's not as big a deal as I thought.
The Australia scheme is going to have a long turnaround no matter what before it brings us any profits, that's why I liked the idea of gaining fame is Russia first so we'd be able to build up for a better jumping off point when colonizing. The fact that full on war might be declared soon makes that more of a High risk/Reward choice, though the two of them both seemed to thing it would be something of a stomp so maybe not as much risk.
It also seemed to me that he was implying that the pirates had Brit backing, so that's something to account for as well.
Learning and diplomacy advisor are great, except they all require money for their actions. You might argue that they could also bring income under their specialty such as invention or trade agreement; but that's tasking someone in the wrong field to do someone else's job without clear need.
Now that we've got our fief set up I'd expect we'll take an option to increase monetization there, but the main reason I went for learning is because filling out the roster of Advisors is a long term thing and a cash crunch (Which we're not even really under yet) shouldn't necessarily force our hand. As I see it these are our current possibilities
Martial - Filled
Diplomacy - First Choice: Euphemia SL 3/Diplo 22 (Two to go, so likely two years), Second Choice: Gino SL 2/Diplo 19 (Less chances to increase so hard to say how long). A good spread of available talent for the role.
Stewardship - First choice: Milly SL2/S 19 (Decently close allies so can probably raise SL relatively fast), Second Choice Hannes SL1/S 19 (Would take a while). A decent amount of choice.
Intrigue - We're our own boss here
Learning - First choice: 4+ years of university to try to get the mecha fanatic. A poor amount of options
Piety - Two actions to build a shrine for our glowing ball. A fast turnaround.