36 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



of the community viewed from a colonising standpoint. Without 

 self-restraint, without any definite hope for the future, without any 

 ambition to conquer the wilderness, or any adventurous spirit to 

 organise a search for its hidden treasures, the days rolled by and 

 the weeks came and went, barren of result, destitute of all impulse 

 to action, starving all interest in life. Wearily they plodded 

 through the daily round of labour, cutting firewood, clearing scrub, 

 burning limestone, making bricks and erecting shelters, more or 

 less flimsy, for themselves and the stores ; their daily recompense 

 a fair share of the provisions which the Government had imported 

 for them, their highest hopes centred in a liberal administration 

 of the commissariat. Truly it is difficult to call up the picture of 

 a settlement so utterly at variance with the prosperous seaside 

 village of Sorrento now occupying the ground of the abandoned 

 camp of this outcast contingent. In the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the site of the rude timber huts and the rows of Government 

 tents now stand the handsome villas and trim gardens of wealthy 

 Melbourne citizens. The forlorn, prison-uniformed crowd that was 

 kept in submission by armed force is now replaced by the well- 

 dressed, prosperous and cheerful throng of holiday-makers, amongst 

 whom scarce one in a thousand knows aught of the sin, sorrow 

 and suffering that once held sway on these shores. 



On the same Sunday morning as that on which the convicts 

 were landed, an expedition was despatched in the Calcutta's launch 

 and a six-oared cutter to explore the bay towards the north in the 

 expectation of discovering a more suitable place for a settlement. 

 It was under the command of Lieutenant Tuckey, who took with 

 him Mr. G. P. Harris, the Deputy-Surveyor on the civil staff, and 

 Mr. Collins, a relative of the Governor's, who had come out on busi- 

 ness of his own connected with the sealing interest, but had formerly 

 been a sailing master in the Royal Navy. In the report by Collins 

 to Governor King, he says this expedition was absent nine days, 

 but according to the Rev. Robert Knopwood's journal, they returned 

 on Friday, the 21st of October, when they "produced to the Governor 

 a chart, the survey about ninety miles round the bay from Arthur's 

 Seat (the highest hill on the east of the bay), and had landed hi 

 several places to observe the soil, trees, and to obtain water ". The 



