Kecieir of Herieut. l/SitO. 



DISTINGUISHED EARLY AUSTRALIANS. 



Ky the Rev. Dr. W.atkin. 

 II. 



Portrait of John Batman, 

 t'l'iiiii a likfiiess siii)|ilie<i liy lii< thandsdii. 



John Batman uas the first of the permanent 

 pioneer settlers un the shores of Port Phillip. He 

 landed at Indented Head in May, 1835. Thirty-one 

 years had elapsed since the Government settlement 

 at Sullivan's Bay, near to the present site of Sor- 

 rento, had been abandoned by Governor Collins. 

 Collins had stated in one of his despatches to 

 Governor King that Port Phillip Bay was wholly 

 unfit for a settlement. In another despatch he 

 wrote : " Every day convinces me that Port Phillip 

 •cannot, nur ever will be, resorted to by speculative 

 men." Another unfavourable opinion was thus ex- 

 pressed : ■■ When all the disadvantages attending 

 this bav are jjublicly known, it cannot be supposed 

 that commercial people will lie very de.sirous of 

 ■visiting Port Phillip." 



No authentic report exists of any ship entering 

 Port Phillip for thirty years after the settlement hatl 

 been abandoned. In all probability the Port was 

 known to the whalers and sealers, who in those days 

 were numerous in Bass's Straits. A whaler's tradi- 

 tion is that a colonial whaler long before the little 

 •settlement was formed on the banks of the Yarra 

 had caught a whale off St. Kilda. The captain of 

 an old c-ol(inial wiialer, the " Flving Squirrel," is 



said to have stated in the parlour of a Launceston 

 hotel in 1833 that he had seen round Port Phillip 

 Bay splendid land for sh«:^:-]) and rattle. But it was 

 John Batman's example w'hich caused the migra- 

 tion of settlers to Port Phillip with their flocks and 

 herds from Tasmania. Batman was born in Pa^- 

 ramatta in 1800. He was a schoolfellow with 

 Hamilton Hume. They were two ad\enturous 

 spirits, and had many a ramble together in the dis- 

 trict round Parramatta. At the age of twenty-one 

 Batman and his brother went to Van Diemen's Land, 

 attracted there by the grants of land which were 

 given by the Government to free settlers. Batman's 

 grant was in the Fingal district, not far from Ben 

 Lumond. The times were rough and dangerous. 

 The bushrangers were abroad. The Tasmanian 

 aborigines, naturally a mild j>eople, had been stung 

 into ferocity by cruel treatment. They had become 

 a menace to the settlers. Batman made himself 

 famous in Tasmania for his braverv and humani- 

 tarianism. Single-handed he captured " Brady," the 

 most famous of Tasmanian bushrangers. When 

 Governor Arthur's scheme for driving the aborigines 

 into a corner of Tasmania and capturing them had 

 resulted in failure, Batman was commissioned by 

 the Government to adopt milder measures. He 

 had made friends with the aborigines in the neigh- 

 liourhood of his home, and through their influence 

 he was one of the instruments in persuading the 

 remnant that was left of the Tasmanian blacks to 

 abandon their hostilitv and to agree to being re- 

 moved from the mainland to adjacent islands. 



A grant of an additional 2000 acres of land was 

 made to Batman for the.se services. Governor 

 Arthur, in a despatch home, wrote : " Mr. Batman 

 treats the savages with the utmost kindness, distri- 



First Government House. Sydney. 



