HISTORICAL REVIEW OF VICTORIA. 



Wales, and in the same year municipal government was bestowed upon Melbourne. Mr. 

 Henry Condell was the first Mayor of the town, and he was also chosen to represent 

 it in Sydney, while Mr. C. H. Ebden and Ur. Alexander Thomson, settlers in Port 

 Phillip ; the Rev. Dr. Lang, Dr. (now Sir Charles) Nicholson, and Mr. Thomas Walker, 

 all then of Sydney, were 

 elected by the voters outside 

 the metropolis of the district. 

 Some time previously an agita- 

 tion had arisen among the 

 people of Port Phillip for 

 separation from New South 

 \Vales, and expression was 

 given to this feeling by Dr. 

 Lang, who moved a resolution 

 affirming its necessity in the 

 Legislative Council on the 

 2oth of August, 1844. It was 

 negatived, however, by more 

 than three to one, and the 

 debate upon it was rendered 

 somewhat remarkable by a 

 speech from the present Lord 

 Sherbrooke, in which he de- 

 clared his belief that the time 

 would come when the mother- 

 country would "knit herself 

 and her colonies into one 

 mighty confederacy, girdling 

 the earth in its whole circum- 

 ference, and confident against 



GOVERNOR LATROBE. 



the world in art and arms." 



Sedulously bent upon attaining separation, the electors of Melbourne, having occasion soon 

 afterwards to choose a fresh representative, selected Earl Grey, the Secretary for the 

 Colonies, and this argunicntnm ad absurdnm probably contributed to bring about the 

 desired object. By way of preparation for it, Her Majesty allowed the settlement 

 to substitute her own name for that of Port Phillip, and on the 5th of August, 1850, 

 an Imperial Enactment erected the district into a separate colony, Mr. Latrobe, the 

 Superintendent of the district of Port Phillip, being appointed its first Governor. 



During his term of office two events occurred which rendered the period memorable 

 in the history of the colony. The first was a calamity which created wide-spread conster- 

 nation and suffering, while the second filled the whole civilized world with magnified 

 reports of its actual marvels. The year 1850 had been one of exceptional heat and 

 drought. Pastures had withered ; creeks had become fissured clay-pans ; water-holes had 

 disappeared ; sheep and cattle had perished in great numbers, and the sun-burnt plains 



