BY JAMES B. WALKER. Ill 



neighbourhood of the Derwent. How disastrous to tlie 

 English colonies in Australia the successful accouii)lish- 

 ment of such a design would have been wo can partly 

 appreciate from our recent exj)erience of the trouble and 

 vexation caused to the Australians by the existence of a 

 French penal settlement even so far removed from onr 

 shores as New Caledonia. 



The following- particulars of the circumstances whicli 

 were the immediate occasion of the English occupation 

 of Van Diemen's Land are drawn almost wholly from 

 unpublished documents preserved in the English State 

 Record Othce, and which I have already referred to as 

 having been lately copied by Mr. Bonwiek for the Tas- 

 nianian Government. They will show that the colonisa- 

 tion of Tasmania was not an isolated or chance event, but 

 one link of a chain, — a ri])j)le in the great current uf 

 influence which has been shaping English and Euroj)ean 

 history. 



On the 18th November, 1802, after a six months' stay, 

 the two French ships sailed out of Port Jackson for Bass' 

 Straits. The Natirrallste was intended to take home the 

 sick, leaving the Gcoyraphe to complete her voyage of 

 discovery alone. Governor King had not been without 

 misgivings respecting the movements of the French, and 

 had given expression to them in a despatch to Lord kihj? to nobart, 

 Hobart written a few days befure ; but Ids suspicions only ^s Nov. I802, p. 

 proceeded from the circumstance of the long time they 

 were engaged in surveying at Storm Bay Passage. 

 Moreover, the recent discovery of Bass' Straits, by 

 proving Van Diemen's Land to be an island, had given 

 rise to a new cause for apin-ehension, since it might now 

 be fairly contended that the island could not form part of 

 the territory of New South Wales, and that the English, 

 having no prior right of discovery, could not make good 

 their claim, while the French expeditions by their 

 exj)lorations and surveys had established a superior title. 

 But a few hours after tiie French ships were out of /'"<'• 

 sight, a piece of gossip reached the Governor's ears 

 wliich fairly startled him out of his c(|uanimity. 'J'his 

 was a report that some of the French officers had stated, 

 in conversation with LitMit. -Colonel Paterson and others, 

 j)0S9ibly iu a convivial moment, tliat a ])rincij)al object 



