1878. VICTORIA. PORT PHILLIJPo FIRST SURVEY AND SETTLEMENT OF. RETURN to an Order of the Legislative A,s8tmOly, Dated 14th August 1878, for- COPIES of certain recently discovered historical records respecting the first Survey and subsequent Settlement of Port Phillip Heads, formed under Lieutenant-Governor Collins in 1803. (Mr. O'Hea.) Ordered by the Legislative Assembly to he printed, 21st Novemher 18'18. CONTENTS. I.-Letter to the Honourable Graham Berry, II.-Prefatory note by the Editor. III.-Journal of Exploration of Port Phillip made by Charles Grimes, Surveyor· General of New South Wales, 1802-3. IV.-Order Book of Lieutenant-Governor Collins during the stay at Port Phillip, 1803-4. V.-Journal of the Rev. Roht. Knopwood, Chaplain to the Settlement. From 24th April 1803 to 31st December 1804. Portrait of Lieutenant-Governor Collins. " Captain W oodrifl', R.N., aM.S. Calcutta. Rev. Robert Knopwood. Mr. James Hobbs. Fac "simile Chart of the Survey of Port Phillip, by Grime!!. Sketch.-The Heads of Port Phillip. [.I!pprorimatf Oost qf Paper.-I'reparatlon, not given; Printing, &e. (715 copies), £121 5s. Od.] )!Iy auttllttty: JOlIN FERRES, GOVERNMJ!:NT PRINTER, MELBOURNE, C.-No. 15. MRo SHILLINGLAW TO THE HONe THE CHIEF SECRETARYo TO THE HONOURA,BLE GRAHAM BERRY, PREMIER OF VICTORIA. SIR, The documents now submitted to you may fairly be called the First Annals of this colony. They are important as being official records, and they set at rest some points which have hitherto been in dispute or doubt regarding the settlement attempted by Governor Collins at Port Phillip Heads three quarters of a century ago. As you have thought these early historical MSS; worthy of national publication, I have compressed in the form of a Prefatory Note a few facts necessary to the illustration of their character and value, and showing'how they were brought to light. I take leave to add that when future writers of Australian history come to tell the story of that marvellous national career which in less than fifty years has transformed a coast whaling­ station and a few turf huts on the banks of an unnamed river into the noble Province of Victoria, they will not fail to recognize the public spirit which has induced you to preserve these memorials of an earlier attempt at its colonization which, happilY'for us all, came to nought. I have the honour to be, Your very obedient servant, JOHN J. SHILLINGLAW, F.R.G.S. Melbourne, 28th October 187e. " '. ,.- D~VID CO~LINS, ' Lt.-Col. Royal Marines and Lieut. Governor of Port Phillip . .,... .) , ", ;". ,: ,) EARLY HISTORICAL RECORDS OF PORX PHILLIPo PREFATORY NOTE BY T~E EDITOR. To get a clear idea of the space of time in which the great English ,colonies have grown up in Australasia, as' well as to mark the period to which the following historical records refer, ali illustration, at once simple and striking, maybe given in a few words. At a little village a few miles from Hobart Town there still walks about a hale hearty man; who was born at Port Phillip Heads on the 25th November 1803. His parents had landed there with the rest of the inteuded colony about six weeks before. ' On ,the following Christmas ,Day, under: the' gum trees, over looking what' is now called "Sorrento," after the chaplaiu's sermon to the assembled civil and military officers, the settlers and 'the convicts;! Lieutenant-Governor ColliIis handed the little son of the sergeant of mariues to the Rev. Mr.' Kuopwood and stood godfather to William James" Hobart 'j Thorne, the first-born of the settlement. In another month godfather and godson, officers, emigrants, and outlaws had got on board ,their ships again, had hove up tb~ir! anchors and sailed away for Tasmania, wher~ Hobart Thorne and Hobart Town grew up together. ' Lieutenant-Governor Collins was 'born in ,1756. 'At the age ofnineteE)U he was with his father's regiment at "Bunker's Hill," in the American Revolutionary War, and at thirty:-two he went out, in 1788, as Judge-Advocate with Governor Phillip in'the ,; FIRST FLEET," and so helped to found SYDNEY. > " , When we reflect that at that time there was not a white man resident on any part of the vast island-continent of Australia, or in New Zealand, Tasmania, or any of the islands washed by Australasian seas, we may form some idea of what has been done in the span of these two lives~' The journals of the, early discoverers and explorers, which led to Collins being sent out by 'the British Government to establish a penal colony at Port Phillip, together with the records of the settlement itself have hitherto been very imperfectly known. The disappearance of some has been a bar to accurate historical narrative and the cause ,of many perplexities. Very recently, however, the archives of the Public Record Office of England have been 'successfully ransacked by the son of an early Victorian' colonist, who has lately published the result of his five years' painstaking research.2 To Mr. Labilliere belongs the credit of having gathered from the vast collection of State Papers preserved in the Colonial and Admiralty offices' in London most of the missing records ; and, for th~ first time, we read in his volumes the true story of the first discovery and subsequent exploration of this province, given in tbe exact words of the men who did the work. But for some' of these missing documents Mr: Labilliere sOllght in vain ; and the Journals of GRIMES and KNOPWOODj now published, are of that number. ' > These fill up gaps in his collection, and their value will be best seen when read in connec­ tion with his full and clear narrative, which at the same time has rendered it unnecessary in this place to do inore than sketch-in a few outlines left by Mr. Labilliere untouched. The fears of Governor King at the beginning the century that France had a design to establish herself somewhere in Australia-to convert Western Fort p,erhaps into a second Pondicherry-lent weight to the concurrent testimony of Bass, Grant, Murray, and Flinders, as to the suitability of the sonth coas.t as a place for settlement; and the expeditiou of Lieutenant­ Colonel CoUins was the prompt result determined on by,the British Governmeut. But meantime Governor King saw fit to have a more particular survey made of Port Phillip. For this purpos~ the colonial schooner Cumberland of 29 tons (the same in which Flinders, exactly tw~lve months after:vards wa~ made prisOlier in the Isle of France) was equipped in ,Sydney, and placed in charge of LIeutenant CHARLES ROBBINS of H.M.S. Buffalo. Robbms carned despatches to the French commodore BAUDIN, then knov(n to be ,?IJ. the coast, iu case .. he should fall In with him. Besides the crew, the party consis.ted of CHARLES GRIMES, the Acting Surveyor-General of New South Wales ; Dr~ McCALLUlr, surgeon; JAMES, MEEHAN, a surveyor; and JAMES FLEMMING, a man in who,m the Governor had great confidence, ',:h~ was to observe tlle nature of the country explored.' Thell' orders were to "walk round" Port ,PhIllIp., - , The journalofthe expedition, herein related, was kept by FLEMMING, and the chart attached is ajae-simile of the survey made by GRIMES. ." '. The Cumberlandsruled from Sydney on the 23rd November 1802, and on the 8th pecem­ bel' fell in with Baudin at Sea Elephant Bay, on the, east coast of King Island. PE~ON, the naturalist of the French Jl]xpedition tells us what followed: 3 He says :- > "Just as we had made tliese arrangements for the safety of our ship we saw the little "schooner the Cumber1and appear. She had come from Port Jackson and had on board Mr. Grimes, " Engineer-in-Chief of the English establishment, who caIjIe by order of the Government to make "a declaration to us which, was as singular in form as remarkable in its object. ' It ! bei:q.g' '" reported,' wrote 1r1r. King to our commander' that you proppse to leave some men either ii!.. 1 The First Sermon, preached in Port Phillip on the 13th ,November 1803 by the Revd. Mr. Knopwood, has been' printed in the, Melbpurne .. Chlfrch of England Messenger," 14th February 1878. ' , 2~' The Early History ,of Victoria: From its .discovery to its establishment as.R self-governing province of the Hri~ish Empire." By F. P, Labilliere, Barri8tei-a.t~Itaw. London: Sampson Low, and eo. ,May 1878, - - • Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terre8AUlj~1e5,'8ur ,Ie cbrvettesle Geographe, le Naturaliste"et la,goelette III Ca,sug-, Tina pendant les a~~. 1800;"4., ?~;13\ Peron l1t L. F;r~y'cin~t'J P~ril!. 1?0~"'.16.; - 2.'v;olp! ,4,tq'i.c?iJ:~,;rplIIH~~o. ," -- '- . '" Diemen's Land or on the western coast of New South Wales in order to form there a French " , colony, I think it IIiy duty to declare to you, M. Ie Commandant, that, in virtue of the Act of " '1788 for taking possession, solemnly proclaimed by England, all these conntries form an " 'integral part of the British Empire ; and that you cannot occupy any part of them without " 'breaking the bonds of friendship which have been so recently re-established between the two " , n::tions. I shall' not even attempt to dissemble, for such is the nature of my special instructions " 'With regard thereto, that I must oppose by all means in my power the execution of the project " 'you are suspected of being about to execute. In consequence of which H.M.S. Cumberland '''has received orders not to leave you until the officer who commands her is satisfied that your " , operatious are foreign to any kind of invasion of British territory in these parts.''' [pp.