74 



THE RISDON SETTLEMENT. 



Bowen to 

 King, 27th 

 September, 

 1803, jyi'r 

 Lady Nelson. 



King to 

 Hobart, 1st 

 Marcli, 1804. 



Bowen to 

 King, 27 th 

 September, 

 1803. 



Ibid. 



colony." Next week he made another trip up the 

 Derwent, but without further results. He sends King a ■' 

 plan of his settlement,* and already within a fortnight of" 

 his arrival he had got quarters built for his soldiers and 

 prisoners, had located his fi'ee settlers on their five-acre 

 allotments up the valley about a quarter of a mile from 

 his tent, and had Clark, the stonemason, at work 

 building a stone store. 



He had — probably in accordance with King's in- 

 structions — named the new settlement " Hobart,"t after 

 Lord Hobart, the Secretaiy of State for the Colonies. 



His Returns, dated " Hobart, Van Diemen's Land, 

 27th September, 1803," show an effective strength of 22 

 men — 21 convicts and their overseer — of whom 2 were 

 in charge of stock, 4 employed on buildings, (viz., a 

 blacksmith, carpenter, and two sawyers), the bulk of 

 the convicts forming a town gang. The three women 

 are returned as " cutting grass," probably for thatching. 

 Of the stock, the Government owned 9 cattle and 25 

 sheep, the Commandant had a mare, and the Doctor a 

 cow, while the Oflicers and Birt and Clarke, the free 

 settlers, were possessors of 7 sheep, 8 goats, and 38 

 swine. 



Within a fortnight from his landing, as I have said, 

 Bowen had all his people housed, and reports to King 

 that the soldiers and prisoners have got very comfortable 

 huts. He fixed his own quarters on the spot where 

 Mr. Gregson's house now stands ; the soldiers' huts were 

 a little behind Dr. Mountgarret's quarters, and the 

 prisoners' huts were placed on the brow of the steep 

 bank overlooking the creek. (See plan). The Command- 

 ant tells King that he has not yet drawn any lines for 

 the town, waiting till he can cut down the large timber 

 which obstructed his view. To lay out a town in such 

 a situation must have been a difficult problem, for his 

 little settlement was perched on the top of a high almost 

 precipitous bank, on the edge of a very narrow gully, 

 and the narrow plateau on which it stood, shut in at the 

 back by rough hills, did not afford room for a fair sized 

 village. But the difficulties of the locality were as 

 nothing to the difficulties of the human material out of 

 which he had to form his colony. 



The soldiers of the New South Wales Corps, who 

 formed his guard, and on whom he had to depend for 



* See Appendix. 



t "Town" was not added to the name until some time after the 

 settlement was removed by Collins to Sullivan's Cove. 



