44 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



on board the Lady Nelson, which had arrived a few days previously 

 to take the place of the unseaworthy Francis. 



The first instructions to Collins by Governor King left him at 

 liberty to proceed to Port Dalrymple, the estuary of the Tamar, on 

 the north coast of Tasmania, or to the Derwent on the south, with 

 a decided leaning towards the former place. A subsequent letter, 

 however, received from Governor King, reported that the channel 

 entering Port Dalrymple was found to be very intricate and narrow, 

 with only three fathoms of water, therefore he presumed that 

 Collins would proceed to establish himself on the Derwent. Be- 

 fore the receipt of this despatch, indeed, he had made up his mind 

 to that course, one of his principal reasons being the discovery of 

 a spirit of discontent amongst the soldiery, which he would be the 

 better able to control with the support of a detachment of the New 

 South Wales Corps already quartered there. The fact is, he pre- 

 ferred selecting a place where there was a nucleus of a settlement 

 to making another experiment in an unknown wilderness. The 

 intricacies of the navigation of the port of Launceston was an 

 excuse quite in keeping with his discovery that Port Phillip was 

 " wholly unfit for settlement ". 



So on Thursday evening, the 26th of January, the Governor went 

 on board the Ocean accompanied by a portion of his staff, including 

 the surveyor and the chaplain. The latter incidentally mentions in 

 his diary that they arranged with the captain of the transport to 

 find them in everything for the very moderate sum of four 

 shillings each per diem. They dropped down to the Heads, but a 

 stiff south-easterly gale barred their exit for a day or two, and on 

 Sunday they went on shore again for a final stroll. 



But on Monday morning, the 30th inst., they made all sail and 

 stood out into the Straits, carrying Governor David Collins out of 

 our annals, never again to set foot on the Australian Continent. 

 The Ocean arrived in the Derwent on the 15th of February, but 

 the process of landing her passengers and discharging her cargo 

 was so tedious that it was not until the 25th of March that she 

 started back again to fetch the remainder of the convicts and their 

 custodians. The interim command of the settlement had devolved 

 on the chief officer of the marines, Lieutenant William Sladden, 



