THE FOUNDING OF MELBOURNE 103 



with all the appalling formalities and in the untranslatable jargon 

 of the law. Convenient blanks were left for the subsequent insertion 

 of the acres purchased, and the consideration to be paid therefor, 

 it being somewhat loosely or ironically assumed that the noble 

 savage would be very particular about conveying more than he had 

 the right to dispose of. 



Armed with these first readings in law for the confiding ab- 

 original, provided with bales of blankets, stores of knives, tomahawks 

 and scissors, and accompanied by three white men in his employ, 

 named William Dodd, James Gumm and Alexander Thompson, 

 and seven of the Sydney aborigines who had worked with him 

 in his native campaigns in Tasmania, Batman sailed forth from 

 Launceston on Sunday, the 10th of May, 1835, in the Rebecca, a 

 schooner of only 30 tons, on a voyage that will remain memorable 

 as one of the beacon-points in the placid annals of Australian 

 colonisation. The start was gloomily inauspicious. After getting 

 down to the Tamar Heads a whole week passed in waiting the 

 chance of an offing, which a persistent westerly gale precluded. 

 Hearing of the long detention, Mrs. Batman drove down to George- 

 town to bid her final adieux, and on Monday the 18th, the Rebecca 

 got clear out of the river, but only to seek refuge the following 

 day in Port Sorrel. Two or three unsuccessful attempts were made 

 to combat the heavy seas and unfavourable winds, but the end of 

 another week still found them in their sheltered haven, prostrate 

 with sea-sickness and generally miserable. At length, on the 26th, 

 they made a good start toward Circular Head, where they anchored 

 a while ; on the 28th they ran across the Strait skirting the coast 

 of King's Island, and at daylight on the morning of the 29th of May 

 they were only eight miles from Port Phillip Heads. By midday 

 they had anchored in a small bay about twelve miles up the Port. 



Batman's journal of this important exploration has been fre- 

 quently published, and it is to be regretted that a document so 

 essential to the actual history of Port Phillip Settlement is not 

 altogether reliable in the matter of dates and distances. The 

 former is probably due to carelessness, and the latter to an un- 

 doubted tendency to exaggeration. It cannot be brought into close 

 harmony with the report furnished to Governor Arthur immedi- 



