THE FOUNDING OF MELBOURNE 115 



as a ground for this warning, and admits that if the settlement 

 could be permitted, it would, on account of its proximity, be highly 

 conducive to the prosperity of Van Diemen's Land. He fulfilled 

 his promise by writing next day to the Colonial Secretary in 

 generally laudatory terms of Batman and his associates, and while 

 admitting that he cannot recommend the recognition of the treaty, 

 he would be glad to see the district colonised, and suggested that 

 it might be placed temporarily under the jurisdiction of the colony 

 over which he presided. In any case he thought that a liberal 

 grant of land to Batman at least would be well bestowed. 



While this correspondence was proceeding others were matur- 

 ing their arrangements for a descent on the promised land. Fore- 

 most among these busy projectors was John Pascoe Fawkner, at 

 that time landlord of the Cornwall Hotel in Launceston, destined 

 by native shrewdness and dogged pertinacity to become a prominent 

 figure in the new settlement. Indeed, though labouring under 

 many personal and social disabilities, he had not failed to acquire 

 prominence already. The early chapters of his life are redolent of 

 the aggressive controversial turbulence which characterised him up 

 to the period of advanced age, toned down only by the gradual 

 failing of his physical powers, which had never been set in a 

 very vigorous frame. Short in stature, squat in figure, shambling 

 in gait, slovenly in attire, with a face of rugged plainness, chiefly 

 marked by the hard mouth and strong chin, and with a voice in 

 which harshness and huskiness struggled alternately for the 

 mastery, he lacked all those physical advantages in which the 

 popular idea clothes the born leader of men. Yet he had such 

 strong individuality of character that he was enabled not only to 

 rise above all these inherited disadvantages and secure the enthusi- 

 astic support of thousands of partisans, but also to outlive the effect 

 of his own many errors and shortcomings, and to retain the applause 

 of the fickle multitude in the position of a popular tribune to the 

 day of his death. 



John Pascoe Fawkner was born in London in 1792, and at the 

 age of eleven years was permitted to accompany his parents to 

 Australia in the Calcutta, his father being under sentence of trans- 

 portation for receiving stolen goods. The tentative occupancy of 



8* 



