68 



A US 7^RA LA SI A ILL US TRA TED. 



! 



of surprise the many evidences of prosperity he had observed in the infant settlement 

 during the five months over which his visit extended. 



It was under the Administration of Governor King that the first settlements were 

 formed at Van Diemen's Land and at Port Phillip. In August, 1803, two vessels were 

 dispatched from Sydney for Van Uiemen's Land, under the command of Lieutenant 

 Bowen, a naval officer. The party landed at Risdon Cove, and formed a settlement 

 there. It was about the same time that Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, who had come out 



with the First Fleet as Judge-Advocate, but 

 had returned to England, was dispatched 

 with another large party in two ships from 

 Portsmouth, for the purpose of establishing 

 a settlement at Port Phillip. Collins reached 

 his destination on the gth of October, 1803; 

 but he sent such unfavourable reports as to 

 the nature of the surrounding country, that 

 Port Phillip was declared to be " totally 

 unfit in every point of view " for the pur- 

 pose of settlement. The whole party was 

 soon after removed to Van Diemen's Land ; 

 and on arrival there Collins selected a site 

 on the beautiful banks of the Derwent 

 River, at a place named by him Sullivan's 

 Cove ; but on the transfer of the settlement 

 under Lieutenant Bowen to that spot it 

 was named Hobart, and subsequently Hobart 

 Town, in honour of Lord Hobart, then 

 Secretary of State for the Colonies. 



Alarmed by a rumour that the French intended to form a settlement in Van 

 Diemen's Land, King sent, in October, 1802, a party under Lieutenant Charles Robbins, 

 in an armed schooner, the Cumberland, " in order to assert His Majesty's claims to the 

 territory, and dispossess and remove any party that may be landed there." The Surveyor 

 General accompanied the expedition, which was instructed to sail to King's Island, Port 

 Phillip and Storm Bay, " taking care to -hoist His Majesty's colours every day on shore 

 during your examination of those places, placing a guard of two men at each place, who 

 are to turn up ground for a garden, and sow the seeds you are furnished with." 



A naval engagement, which took place off the Sydney Heads, in November, 1804, 

 deserves mention as a remarkable incident of the times. An English whaling-ship, the 

 Policy, carrying letters of marque and six twelve-pounders, came up with a Dutch ship, 

 the Swift, armed with six eighteen-pounders, and the whaler, after two hours' hard 

 fighting, compelled the latter to strike her colours. The prize, with twenty thousand 

 Spanish dollars on board, was taken into Port Jackson, condemned and sold. 



When Governor King left the colony in 1806, the population numbered about nine 

 thousand ; of land under occupation there were nearly one hundred and sixty-six thou- 

 sand acres, of which about twelve thousand acres were cultivated, and over a hundred 





MACARTHURS TOMB AT CAMDEN. 



