196 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



On account of the blacks - - 2,390 



Purchase and charter of vessel - - 2,600 



Expenses of Messrs. Batman and Wedge - - 2,010 

 The former in treating with the natives, the 

 latter in surveying the country 



7,000 



The decision finally minuted remained unaltered, but not with- 

 out repeatedly renewed attempts made, both in England and in the 

 Colonies, to get it reviewed. Several of the original members of 

 the Association had parted with their interests at a great sacrifice, 

 and when the matter was brought to an issue not half of the 

 number were represented. At a land sale held in Sydney on 13th 

 February, 1838, an agent for the Association bought some blocks 

 of land lying to the westward of Geelong, altogether about 9,500 

 acres for 7,919 7s. 7d., of which sum 7,000 was remitted in 

 terms of the Council's minute. 



The controversy which has thus been related at such length was 

 not of a character to enlist violent partisans on either side. Apart 

 from those directly interested in the Association, few could be 

 found who would not admit that its claims were unduly grasping, 

 its aboriginal philanthropy too loudly proclaimed, its effect of 

 expenditure exaggerated, and the result of its labours from a 

 national point of view largely accidental. On the other hand, the 

 public verdict will probably be that the Government of the day 

 acted with a parsimony bordering on huckstering ; and that the 

 Colonial Secretary certainly led the applicants to believe at one 

 time that he intended to do more for them than the local admini- 

 strator considered himself empowered to carry out. It is needless 

 to travel over the ground again, or to cite the numerous precedents 

 where men had been endowed by the Crown with enormously 

 valuable estates for merely undertaking to employ a number of 

 convict servants, and thus relieve the Crown of their maintenance. 

 Much of the apparent hardship was due to the then recent radical 

 changes in dealing with Crown lands, and to the transition state 

 of land regulations. Beyond this, there would appear to have 



