78 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



acres, but after the most careful examination of the country for 

 hundreds of miles round, they were reluctantly compelled to the 

 conclusion that they must incur the great expense and risk of 

 removing their stock to some more promising locality. It was no 

 hasty decision thus arrived at, for nearly two years were spent in 

 wrestling with the wilderness. The sandy wastes, the dense, worth- 

 less scrub, and the deceptive herbage in which poison lurked, were 

 playing havoc with their valuable stock ; so having duly advised 

 their father of their intention, they made arrangements for trans- 

 porting the entire establishment to Tasmania in 1831. The delay 

 cost them more than they could have imagined, for had they 

 arrived a few months earlier they would have been able to transfer 

 to that colony their extensive and valuable rights of pre-emption ; 

 but new regulations had just been issued abolishing the system 

 of granting land in proportion to the property of the settler, 

 and fixing the price at not less than five shillings per acre. 

 Mr. Thomas Henty, with his wife, daughter and three other of 

 his sons, Charles, Edward and Frank, sailed from England in 

 October, 1831, by the Forth of Alloway, and arrived in Launceston 

 to learn that his well-grounded anticipations of a substantial estate 

 in the new world had no prospect of realisation. His expenditure 

 of over 10,000 in the attempt to form a home for his large family 

 had left him landless and embarrassed. A year soon slipped away 

 in tedious negotiations with the Government for some concessions 

 and in laying the foundations of a home at Launceston. Early in 

 1833 Mr. Edward Henty was sent by his father to inspect and 

 report upon the character of the Southern Australian coast, and he 

 made a voyage to Spencer's Gulf in the barque Carnarvon. He 

 spent a couple of months unsuccessfully in search of suitable 

 country, and at Port Lincoln was fortunate enough to secure a 

 return passage in the schooner Thistle, which had called in there 

 en route from Swan River to Launceston. On this trip the 

 schooner anchored in Portland Bay, and Mr. Henty was de- 

 lighted with the appearance of the little whaling station and its 

 suitability for a town. He made another visit there a few months 

 later in the schooner Elizabeth, spent a week or two in exploring 

 the country for a considerable distance round, and then returned to 



