BY JAMES BACKHOUSE WALKER. 207 



the views of the Government on Australian colonisation 

 at this important period, that it is here given in full : — 



" Memorandum of a Proposed Settlement in 

 Bass's Straights. 



'' The attention of the French Government has recently 

 been directed to New Holland, and two French ships 

 have, during the present year, been employed in survey- 

 ing the western and southern coasts, and in exploring the 

 passage through Basses Straights to Nev/ South Wales. 

 By the accounts which have been recently received from 

 Governor King at Port Jackson, there is reason to 

 believe that the French navigators had not discovered 

 either of the two most important objects within those 

 Straights, namely, the capacious and secure harbour in 

 the North, to which Governor King has given the name 

 of Port Phillip, nor a large island called King's Island, 

 situated nearly midway on the western side of the 

 Straights, and which extends about 50 miles in every 

 direction. 



"Governor King represents each of these objects as 

 deserving the attention of Government, but especially 

 Port Phillip, where he urgently recommends that an 

 Establishment should be immediately formed, at the same 

 time observing that, if the resources of his Government 

 could have furnished the means, he should have thought 

 it his duty, without v/aiting for instructions, to have 

 formed a settlement there. 



" The reasons adduced by Governor King in support 

 of this opinion are principally drawn from the advantages 

 which the possession of such a port naturally suggests for 

 the valuable fishery that may be carried on in the 

 Straights, where the seal and the sea elephant abound, 

 and from the policy of anticipating the French, to whom 

 our discovery of this port and of King's Island must soon 

 be known, and who may be stimulated to take early 

 measures for establishing themselves in positions so 

 favourable for interrupting in any future war the com- 

 munication between the United Kingdom and New 

 South Wales, through the channel of Basses Straight. 



" In addition to these reasons, it may be stated that it 

 would be of material consequence to the settlement at 

 Port Jackson, which has now arrived to a population of 

 near six thousand persons, if an interval of some years 

 were to be given for moral improvement, which cannot 

 be expected to take place in any material degree while 

 there is an annual importation of convicts, who neces- 

 sai'ily carry with them those vicious habits which were the 

 cause of their having fallen under the sentence of the law. 



