all was barren, he broke up the settlement, re-embarked his troops and convicts, and sailed for the Derwent River, in Van Diemen's Land, where he landed on the 19th February 1804. It was perhaps as well, however, for the future welfare and advancement of Port Phillip, that its superior capabilities for the formation of a British settlement were not ascertained on that occasion; for it would otherwise have, long ere now, been overrun with convicts, while millions of acres of its available territory, which may now form the valuable patrimony of the humbler classes of the mother country, in ensuring them a free passage out to a country in which their labour can be turned to a beneficial account for themselves, would have been recklessly given away, by successive governors, to individuals who had no other claim to public favour than that of abject servility to the powers that were.

After the sentence of indiscriminate condemnation which was thus passed upon it by Colonel Collins, Port Phillip was not again heard of, either in New South Wales or elsewhere, for twenty years. In the year 1824, however, two respectable settlers in the county of Argyle, in New South Wales, Messrs. Hovell and Hume the former a retired shipmaster, and the latter an enterprising native of the colony-having formed an equipment at their own private expense, took their departure from Lake George, in that county, to find their way to the Southern Ocean. Getting entangled among the northern spurs of the Snowy Mountains, after crossing the Murrumbidgee, they were obliged to keep considerably farther to the westward than they had at first intended, in order to clear that extensive chain; and having accordingly reached an open country in the meridian of 148° E., they discovered a river of upwards of a hundred yards in breadth, which they found issuing from the mountains, with a rapid westerly current, in latitude 36° S., and which Captain Hovell named the Hume, in honour of his adventurous fellow-traveller. Passing through a comparatively open country, well watered and abounding in

pasture, they discovered and crossed a second river,. in latitude 36° 40' S., which they named the Ovens, in honour of Brigade-Major Ovens, who was then Private Secretary to the Governor. This river was considerably smaller than the Hume, but of equal velocity, and its course was north-westward. At length they crossed a third river, in latitude 37° S., pursuing a similar course, and formed from the junction of various streams issuing from the same range of mountains, which they named the Goulburn, in honour of Frederick Goulburn, Esq., who was then Colonial Secretary of New South Wales. The party then stood to the eastward, and, again crossing the 146th meridian of east longitude, they beheld the coast range of hills, and, traversing a beautiful open pastoral country, reached the north-east arm of Port Phillip, which they mistook for Western Port, on the 16th of December 1824. On their return to New South Wales, they stood considerably to the westward of their outward route, keeping pretty much in the line of the present overland route from Melbourne to Sydney.

Some time after the return of this expedition, the real importance of the results of which was for a long period strangely overlooked, a penal settlement was formed at Western Port, during the administration of General Darling, of which the charge was intrusted to Captain Hovell; but, like many other ill-considered attempts of the kind on all parts of the coast, it was speedily abandoned.

Ten years, however, after the discoveries of Messrs. Hume and Hovell, and thirty years after the abandonment of Port Phillip as a site for a penal settlement by Colonel Collins, the amazing increase of stock, and the difficulty of obtaining eligible pasture in Van Diemen's Land, induced a few enterprising stockholders in that colony to direct their attention to the opposite coast; and, accordingly, an enterprising individual, Mr. Batman, a native of Parramatta, in New South Wales, who had long resided in Van Dieman's Land, was deputed to visit Port Phillip, and to report as to

its capabilities for the depasturing of stock; for there were persons still alive in Van Diemen's Land who had belonged to the expedition of Colonel Collins in 1804, and who maintained, in opposition to the verdict of that officer, that it was not all barren, and this traditionary impression served as a stimulus to the constituents of Mr. Batman.

Mr. Batman's report, as to the capabilities of Port Phillip as a grazing country, was in the highest degree favourable; and that report having been subsequently confirmed by the testimony of other credible witnesses, who were afterwards sent across from Van Diemen's Land on his track, the result was as if the whole colony of Van Diemen's Land had been suddenly electrified. I happened to visit that island, on a clerical tour from New South Wales, in the months of October and November 1835, when the excitement was at its height; and on traversing the island, to and fro, between Hobart Town and Launceston, at its opposite extremities, I found almost every respectable person I met with preparing, either individually, or in the person of some near relation or confidential agent, to occupy the Australian El Dorado. Joint Stock Companies, including the first names in the colony, were formed, with designations as various and imposing as those of the Railway Companies of later times, for the purchase of vast domains, and the depasturing of stock, in Port Phillip. For, as the highest legal opinion in the colony -although it must be acknowledged that the lawyers consulted were both counsel and clients in the case— set forth that, as the southern coast of New Holland was a waste country, in the occupation of no European Power, it was free to be taken possession of by the first comers, or by those who could make the best bargain with the aborigines-in whom the entire sovereignty of the country and the property of the soil were alleged to be alike exclusively vested. Tracts of land, as extensive as the largest principalities, were forthwith purchased from the black natives, on behalf of the different Companies concerned, and the stipulated

number of blankets, hatchets, and looking-glasses being duly paid, regular Deeds of Conveyance, attesting the fact, were drawn up, signed, sealed, and delivered, with all the usual formalities of law. As these Deeds are now part and parcel of the history of the province, I subjoin the following copy of one of them the one which Mr. Batman concluded on the part of the Company called the Van Diemen's Land Association— not merely as a literary curiosity, but as a singular instance of the mental hallucination which an overweening regard for one's own interest will sometimes produce even in men of superior standing and intelligence; for the supposition that such a transaction as the following document records could be sanctioned for one moment by the government of any civilized country in the present age, is in every respect worthy of a lunatic asylum :

"Know all persons, that we, three brothers, Jagajaga, Jagajaga, Jagajaga, being the principal chiefs, and also Cooloolock, Bungarie, Yanyan, Moowhip, Momarmalar, being the chiefs of a certain native tribe called Dutigallar, situated at or near Port Phillip, called by us, the above mentioned chiefs, Irausnoo and Geelong, being possessed of the tract of land herein mentioned, for and in consideration of 20 pairs of blankets, 30 knives, 12 tomahawks, 10 looking-glasses, 12 pairs of scissors, 50 handkerchiefs, 12 red shirts, 4 flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes, and 50 pounds of flour, delivered to us by John Batman, Esq., do give, grant, &c., all that tract of country, about 100,000 acres, in consideration of the yearly tribute of 50 pairs of blankets, 50 knives, 50 tomahawks, 50 pairs of scissors, 50 looking-glasses, 20 suits of slops or clothing, and 2 tons of flour."

To this deed were appended the names, or rather marks, and seals of the aborigines enumerated in it. The same extensive proprietors subsequently alienated an additional portion of their territory, to the extent of 500,000 acres, more or less, for 20 pairs of blankets, 30 tomahawks, 100 knives, 30 pairs of scissors, 30

looking-glasses, 200 handkerchiefs, 100 lbs. of flour, and 6 shirts, with a yearly tribute similar to the preceding.

In making these purchases from the black natives, considerable assistance was obtained from an Englishman of the name of Buckley, (originally a soldier, who had been transported for desertion,) whom Mr. Batman found, on his arrival, among the black natives of Port Phillip. He was one of the convicts of Colonel Collins' expedition in 1803, and had absconded and taken to the bush when the settlement was broken up, preferring a life of freedom among the wild natives of Port Phillip to one of hard bondage in Van Diemen's Land. The natives had received and treated him kindly, and he had been naturalized and domiciliated among them for thirty years, when his fellow-countrymen again visited Port Phillip. He was by no means an intelligent man, and had never been far from the Port in any direction; but he was of great use to the adventurers from Van Diemen's Land, in explaining their objects and intentions to the aborigines, and in conciliating towards them their friendship and favour. He was afterwards rewarded for his services with some minor appointment in the convict department of Van Diemen's Land.

The vigour with which the settlement of Port Phillip was prosecuted by adventurers from that island may be conceived from the fact, that before the close of the year 1835, the emigrants from that colony, who were regularly settled at Port Phillip, amounted to 50, while their stock amounted to 100 head of cattle and 1400 sheep; eight vessels, with passengers and stock having, in the meantime, crossed the straits from Van Diemen's Land. But, during the following six months, or before the close of the month of June 1836, the population exceeded 200, and the sheep amounted to 50,000, thirty-five vessels having arrived during the interval from Van Diemen's Land. A regular village on the site of the present town of Melbourne had then been formed; fifty acres of land were in cultivation;