THE PORT PHILLIP ASSOCIATION 183 



Wales, and that the Crown could not recognise any titles to land 

 acquired there except under the conditions prescribed in the Com- 

 mission held by the Governor, Sir Richard Bourke. 



To any ordinary negotiation this reply would seem to have closed 

 the correspondence, but Mercer was not so easily discomfited. The 

 ground which he now took up was the importance of raising the 

 character of the colonial possessions by ceasing to make them mere 

 penal settlements, and to limit that unhappy taint to the districts 

 already so occupied. His letter of the 16th of March sets out so 

 fully the precedents for the application and the extent of the 

 financial responsibility the Association is prepared to undertake, 

 that it is worthy of being given in full, and will serve as a fair 

 sample of the ability with which the correspondence was conducted. 

 The full text of the letter is as follows : 



" MY LORD, 



" I have had the honour to receive your Lordship's letter of 

 the 15th of February, in reply to my address under date 26th 

 January, 1836, intimating that His Majesty's Government cannot 

 acknowledge any title to the lands acquired by the Port Phillip 

 Association, except upon the terms prescribed in the Commission 

 and instructions issued to Governor Sir Eichard Bourke, the lands 

 in question constituting a part of the colony of New South Wales. 



" Sir E. Bourke's Commission and instructions have reference, 

 I presume, alone to a penal colony, and, moreover, it may not be 

 impossible that the said Commission and instructions were drawn at 

 a time when the British Government deemed it expedient to meet 

 and counteract a disposition evidenced by the Government of France 

 to form a colony on that part of Australia ; consequently, the terri- 

 tory of New South Wales might have been extended far beyond the 

 limits adapted to a penal colony. 



" Port Phillip is about 600 miles from Sydney, and 400 from the 

 nearest lands of that colony yet occupied by British subjects with 

 the sanction of Government, and will not, therefore, under the slow 

 and regular march of population, be located as a penal colony until 

 some very distant period. 



" I have been given to understand that it is not the intention of 

 His Majesty's Government to extend or increase penal colonies ; and 



