THE FIRST YEAR OF THE SETTLEMENT 139 



Governor also to observe that he earnestly recommends provision 

 to be made from the beginning for schools " in which the children 

 of persons of different religious tenets may be instructed, as in 

 Ireland ". He shows himself to be a shrewd man of the world by 

 adding : " The means of education being secured, I should feel 

 disposed to leave it to the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants 

 to provide for churches and clergy ". 



While this despatch, so weighty with the fortunes of the new 

 settlement, was on its way to the other side of the world, to be dealt 

 with by His Majesty's advisers, John Batman, who was winding up 

 his affairs in Launceston, again approached Governor Arthur on the 

 question of Government protection. He fully realised the possi- 

 bility on his return to the Yarra of a conflict of interests between the 

 Association and Fawkner's party, or other independent adventurers, 

 and his letter to the Lieutenant-Governor, dated 25th October, set 

 forth very temperately the necessity for an immediate official recog- 

 nition of the new territory, and some provision for the maintenance 

 of law and order. He dwelt upon the fact that the Association had 

 two ships engaged in the transportation oi stock and stores, and 

 that within six months they would have property there to the value 

 of 25,000, a fair indication of the great importance which the 

 colony might be expected to attain. Their own arrangements for 

 the control and administration of the settlement were all that could 

 be desired, but he feared that without some recognised authority 

 the interlopers who had recently, in defiance of previous occupation, 

 fixed themselves on a part of the territory would materially check, 

 if not destroy, the principles of colonisation laid down by the Asso- 

 ciation. He touched upon the benefits already derived by the 

 natives, from eighty to a hundred of them having been clothed and 

 supplied with daily rations by his party ; and he intimated that the 

 co-partnery would most cheerfully defray such portions of the 

 expense connected with the supervision as the local Government 

 might consider fair and reasonable. 



Governor Arthur, who appears to have still retained a hope 

 that he might be admitted to some share in the control of the new 

 settlement, at once transmitted Batman's application to Sydney, 

 and while admitting that, strictly speaking, the Association was not 



