PROCEEDINGS, MAY. vil 



their supposed design of colonising it, and stated that the present 

 paper would follow the course of English discoveries in Southern 

 Tasmania. The English discoverer of the Derwent was Lieut. John 

 Hayes, of the Hon. East India Co.'s Service. In those days the East 

 India Co. claimed a monopoly of the trade, not only w ith India and 

 China, but with the whole of the Pacific and New Holland. So late 

 as 1806 the company successfully resisted the landing and sale in 

 England of a cargo of oil and seal skins shipped by a Sydney firm, the 

 ground being that it was infringement of their monopoly. Hayes' 

 expedition was the only one ever sent by the company to assist in Aus- 

 tralian discovery. Hayes was ignorant of D'Entrecasteaux's surveys, 

 and when he came up the river in 1794 he thought it was an original 

 discovery, and named it the Derwent. He also named Mount Direction, 

 Prince of Wales Bay, Cornelian Bay, Risdon Cove, and other places. 

 The vessel carrying Hayes' charts and papers to England was captured 

 by the French and all his journals taken to Paris, and the result of his 

 voyage was lost. The next visitors to the Derwent were Flinders and 

 Bass, in the Norfolk. They circumnavigated Tasmania for the first 

 time and surveyed the Derwent. Bass gave a favourable description of 

 the country on the shores of that river, and was particularly struck with 

 the advantages of Risdon. It was probably owing to his report that 

 Governor King instructed Lt. Bowen to form his settlement there. 

 The paper then proceeded to give the history of the Risdon settlement, 

 principally from information contained in documents preserved in the 

 English State Record Office, and which were lately copied by Mr. Jas. 

 Bonwick for the Tasmanian Government. The first settlement in 

 Tasmania was made on September 12, 1803, on the hill near Risdon, 

 on which the house of the late Mr. T. G. Gregson stands, a most 

 unsuitable site, as it afterwards proved. From the very commencement 

 Bowen had great trouble with his people, the prisoners being of a very 

 bad class, lazy, useless, and ill-behaved. The few soldiers who formed 

 his guard were discontented and almost mutinous. A few weeks after 

 Bowen's arrival a reinforcement of prisoners and soldiers was sent from 

 Sydney, making the number up to about 100, but the new arrivals 

 proved no better than the first. Very little in the way of progress was 

 accomplished, and when Governor Collins arrived in February, 1804, he 

 found no ground had been prepared for sowing. Prisoners escaped from 

 the colony, and the soldiers robbed the stores. In February, 1804, 

 Governor Collins abandoned the proposed settlement at Port Phillip, 

 and brought his colony to the Derwent. He abandoned Risdon as 

 unsuitable, and chose the present site of Hobart for his new town, 

 Bowen was at the time absent in Sydney, whither he had taken a soldier 

 to be tried for robbery. When he returned he found Collins in 

 command at the new settlement in Sullivan's Cove. The little party 

 at Risdon were in a sad condition, short of food, and altogether 

 demoralised. Lt. Bowen was still left in charge of the Risdon colony, 

 and on May 3, 1804, the first a£fray took place between the English and 

 the aborigines at Risdon. The cause of this unfortunate occurrence was 

 the arrival of 200 or 300 natives who had come to hunt kangaroo. They 

 did not attack the settlers, but their appearance created a panic, which 

 resulted in the soldiers firing upon the blacks, killing a number 

 variously estimated at from three to 50. This was the beginning of 

 the troubles with the natives which lasted for nearly 30 years, and 

 ended in the almost complete destruction of the native race, and the 

 removal of the remnant to Flinders Island, In May 1804 the Risdon 

 settlement was abandoned, and all the soldiers and the prisoners 

 comprising it, except about a dozen were sent back to Sydney in the 

 month of August. Lieut. Bowen's pay for 14 months governorship was 

 lOOgns. He returned to England, and as captain of an English man-of- 

 war, served during the later years of the French war, dying in 1828, 



