Phillipsland

Front matter

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COUNTRY HITHERTO DESIGNATED PORT PHILLIP:

ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS,

Contents

PAC-E

Introduction, . . . • . . -1 Chapter I. — Geographical Extent and Boundaries — Progressive Discovery of the Coast Line — Physical Characteristics — Mountains and Rivers — With the facilities

presented for internal communication, . . 6

Introduction

The vast territory hitherto comprehended under the general designation of the Colony of New South Wales, has evidently been designed by the great Author of Nature to form three separate and independent Colonies or States.

The first of these — known for the last few years as the Middle District, or New South Wales Proper — extends from Cape Howe, the south-eastern extremity of the land, to the Solitary Isles, or the 30th parallel of South latitude. The second — known as the Northern or Moreton Bay District — extends from the 30th parallel of South latitude to the Tropic of Capricorn. And the third — known as the Southern or Port Phillip District — extends from Cape Howe to the 141st meridian of East longitude, which forms the present Parliamentary boundary, to the eastward, of the Colony of South Australia.

Each of these divisions of the present unwieldy Colony possesses a coast line of about 500 miles ; that of the Middle and Northern Districts being towards the Southern Pacific, and that of the Southern or Port Phillip District towards Bass' Straits and the Great Southern Ocean. They have each a sufficient extent of available territory for the settlement of a numerous population and the establishment and maintenance of a respectable Colonial Government ; and they have each also a magnificent harbour for foreign commerce,

A

INTRODUCTION.

conveniently situated at nearly an equal distance from the opposite extremities of their respective coast lines ; the harbour of Port Jackson or Sydney being the great emporium for foreign commerce for the Middle District or New South Wales Proper, that of Moreton Bay for the Northern District, and that of Port Phillip for the Southern.

The boundaries of the great Colony of New South Wales, either towards the neighbouring Colony of South Australia to the westward, or towards the Moreton Bay country to the northward, have not yet been definitively fixed ; for it is not surely too much to assume that the present Parliamentary boundaries of the 141st meridian of East longitude, as the common boundary of the Colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, and of the 26th parallel of South latitude, as the boundary of New South Wales to the northward — evincing, as these boundaries do, the want of everything like reason and common sense, as well as an utter disregard for the convenience and comfort of the future inhabitants of these extensive regions — were merely intended to serve a temporary purpose, till the country should be fully explored, and its great natural features ascertained, and the proper boundaries, for the great conterminous British communities of which it is evidently destined to become the local habitation, fixed and determined.

Neither has the permanent boundary between the Middle District or New South Wales Proper and the Southern or Port Phillip District been definitively fixed, although the subject is at present under consideration by Her Majesty's Government, in consequence of the earnest desire of the inhabitants of Port Phillip, expressed in a petition to Her Majesty the Queen, from the whole of the Representatives of the District in the

INTRODUCTION.

present Legislative Council of New South Wales, to be erected into a separate and independent Colony.

The object of the following work is to describe the actual condition, and to point out the extraordinary capabilities for extensive emigration and colonization of the third of the Districts above-mentioned — the Southern or Port Phillip District of the great Colony of New South Wales. And this District I propose, for the reasons following, as well as in accordance with the opinion and desire of several of its most intelligent and influential inhabitants, to designate Phillip sl and. *

1. It is expedient and necessary that every separate and distinct Colony of the British Empire should have a distinctive and appropriate name ; and as the province of Port Phillip must necessarily have this character and standing very soon, if not immediately, it is desirable, on many accounts, that it should have such a name forthwith. Now, the name proposed is in perfect accordance with the genius of our language, as well as with common usage in a variety of other parallel cases ; as, for example, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Poland, Friesland, Jutland, Iceland, Greenland, Lapland, Finland, Newfoundland, Maryland, Yan Dieman's Land, Heligoland.

2. Port- Phillip is already the distinctive and appropriate name of a magnificent inlet of the ocean, forming a splendid harbour for commerce for the extensive territory in which it is situated ; but it is by no means

* Sir Thomas Mitchell has named the western part of this province, which he discovered and traversed in the year 1836, Australia Felix ; but tins is rather a poetical designation than a proper name — as when we call Great Britain " the sea-girt isle," or " the Queen of the seas ;" and besides, it does not extend to the whole province.

INTRODUCTION", a suitable name for that territory itself, being neither distinctive nor appropriate, but, on the contrary, likely, in such a use of the name, to lead to serious mistakes and confusion. For instance, there are the separate and distinct harbours of Western Port and Port Albert to the eastward, and of Port Fairy to the westward, of the great inlet of Port Phillip ; but to describe the locality of any of these ports as being in Port Phillip, agreeably to the present nomenclature, is no description at all, for it does not inform any person at a distance, and not previously acquainted with the localities, whether the said port is w T ithin the gulf or inlet erf Port Phillip, properly so called, or merely in the extensive territory or province, which has hitherto been improperly designated by the same name.

3. Such a name as Port Phillip applied to an extensive territory argues a poverty of conception discreditable to the intellect of the nation, and especially to that o: those upon whom the task of giving proper names to the British Colonies more particularly devolves.

4. The slight change proposed, in allowing the port or harbour to retain its proper name of Port Phillip, and in giving the name of Phillipsland to the Territory or Colony, would remove all ambiguity for the future, and would confer precisely the same honour as the present designation implies on the highly meritorious officer whose name both the Port and the Territory w^ould thenceforth bear. That officer was His Excellency Captain Arthur Phillip, E.N., the founder and first governor of the Colony of New South Wales. This officer, it is well known, carried out the views of the Home Government, in forming the first British settlement ever formed in the Southern Hemisphere, with a decree of self-devotion and moral heroism but rarely equalled, and never surpassed. For when, in conse-

INTRODUCTION.

quence of an unforeseen and deplorable calamity, of which neither the nature nor the extent could be known in the Colony — I mean the loss of the Guardian storeship by striking on an iceberg in the Great Southern Ocean — the Settlement was for a long time in want of everything requisite for the sustenance of human life, with a prospect for the future dark and dismal in the extreme, and the other superior officers of the Colony were unanimously of opinion that the infant settlement should be abandoned, Governor Phillip, in the exercise of the Veto with which he had been wisely intrusted by his Sovereign, refused to sanction the measure, and, in order to show that he was not unwilling to share the utmost privations to which the Settlement might be reduced, not only subjected himself to the same ration and allowances as the meanest individual in the Colony, but surrendered to the public the whole of his own private store. It was, doubtless, in great measure to the self-devotion of this gallant officer on that trying occasion that Great Britain owes the whole of her Australian Colonies at the present day. I trust, therefore, the intelligent reader will feel satisfied that I have shown sufficient cause why the territory of Port Phillip should henceforth be designated Phillipsland.

Chapter I. Geographical Extent And Boundaries — Progressive Discover Y

OF THE COAST LINE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS —MOUNTAINS

AND RIVERS WITH THE PACILTTIES PRESENTED EOR INTERNAL

COMMUNICATION.

Phillipsland, or the Port Phillip District of the Colony of New South Wales, extends from Cape Howe, the south-eastern extremity of the land, situated in 37° 30' south, and 150° 7' east, to the 141° of east longitude ; that meridian being its present boundary to the westward or towards South Australia. I have already observed that the northern boundary has not yet been definitively fixed ; but in a dispatch of the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, addressed to the late Governor of New South Wales, of date 31st May 1840, as well as in the Royal Instructions under the Sign Manual, of date 23d May 1840, the southern boundary of the counties of St. Vincent and Murray, and from the latter of these counties the rivers Murrumbidgee and Murray were proposed as the future boundary between New South Wales and Port Phillip.*

* Extract of Dispatch from the Right Honourable Lord John Russell to Goxernor Sir George Gipps,of date Downing Street, Slst May 1840.

These two districts (the Southern and the Middle, or Sydney District) are to be divided by the boundaries of the two southernmost counties of New South Wales, as proclaimed by the Governor on the 14th of October 1829, and, from the limits of these two counties, by the whole course of the River Murrumbidgee and the Murray, until it meets the eastern boundary of South Australia, which, of course, will constitute the limit to the westward both of the Sydney and of the Port Phillip District.

GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES. 7

Against this boundary, however, the late Legislative Council of New South Wales very properly protested ; for as it struck the Pacific at the Mooruyia River, in latitude 36° south, it would have cut off from that Colony ninety miles of the east coast, the harbour of Twofold Bay and the extensive grazing district of Maneroo Plains, to the eastward of the Snowy Mountains or Australian Alps — all of which are intimately connected with New South Wales, and in no way connected with Port Phillip. But the boundary proposed by the Council, viz. a line drawn from Cape Howe to the nearest sources of the Hume River, and along that river till it joins the Murrumbidgee and becomes the Murray, would have been equally unjust to Port Phillip ; as the Hume River, for a considerable part of its course, approaches within 150 miles of the town of Melbourne, the capital of that province, where it is at least 500 miles from Sydney, the capital of New South Wales. In these circumstances, the only equitable boundary

Seeing how little the general direction of the Murrumbidgee, after leaving the boundary of the original settlements of New- South Wales, varies from an east and west course, it has appeared to me more convenient to choose this natural and well-defined boundary, than to adopt a parallel of latitude.

Extract from Copy of Instructions, under the Royal Sign 31anuaVand Signet, addressed to Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales, dated 23d May 1840.

Whereas we have deemed it expedient to revoke the said instructions of the 10th day of October 1837, so far as the same are hereinbefore recited, in respect of all lands situate within our said territory of New South Wales, lying to the southward of a boundary hereinafter more particularly described ; now, therefore, the said instructions are so far revoked accordingly.

And it is our pleasure, that all lands lying to the southward of the said boundary, hereinafter more particularly described, shall henceforward be known by the name of the Port Phillip District of our said territory of New South Wales.

And we do further declare our will and pleasure to be, that the before- mentioned boundary shall be the southern boundary of the county of Saint Vincent, and the southern and south-western boundary of the county of Murray, as far as the River Murrumbidgee and the River Murray, until the same reaches the eastern boundary of our province of South Australia.

PHILLIPSLANB.

that can be suggested is the one proposed by the Mayor and Town Council of Melbourne, viz. a line drawn from Cape Howe to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko, the highest peak of the Snowy Mountains or Australian Alps, from thence to the nearest sources of the Tumut or Doomut River, and along that river till it falls into the Murrumbidgee, near the western boundary of the county of Murray, and from thence along the Murrumbidgee andtheMurray, asproposedbyLord John Russell and the Eoyal Instructions of 1 840 . This boundary would preserve to the Colony of New South Wales the whole eastern coast of the Pacific to Cape Howe, while it would establish, as a permanent boundary between that Colony and Phillipsland, the River Murrumbidgee from the point where it deflects to the westward at a part of its course nearly equidistant from the two Colonial capitals. Besides, it would render the Territory of Phillipsland a regular parallelogram or oblong of nearly the same breadth, throughout its whole extent.

There is another suggestion, in regard to the boundary line of Port Phillip, which I believe was originally made by his Honour, the Superintendent of that District, and which deserves the serious consideration of Her Majesty's Government, especially in these days in which there has already been so much ado about boundary lines. The 141st degree of east longitude, assigned by Act of Parliament, has proved a most unsuitable and inconvenient boundaiy between Port Phillip and South Australia ; for as there is no prominent natural feature of the country coincident with that meridian, it has become exceedingly difficult, or rather quite impracticable, to ascertain whether certain squatters, who have flocks and herds depasturing in that vicinity, are to be considered as in Port Phillip or in South Australia, or whether certain crimes and misdemeanours, of which the law ought to take immediate cognizance, have been committed in the one Colony or in the other. In short, from the want of a natural boundary, which could not be mistaken, the revenue in both Colonies has been perhaps unintentionally de?

GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES. 9

frauded on the one hand, and the ends of justice defeated on the other. Besides, the whole of the country intervening between the Murray River and the ocean, in the lower part of its course, with the exception of a narrow belt of land towards Port Phillip, is an arid desert ; the necessary consequence of which must be that the future inhabitants of that narrow belt of land, although nominally and politically in South Australia, will have all their social and commercial relations with the inhabitants of Port Phillip, from whom they will be separated by a mere imaginary line, and none whatever with their fellow-colonists of South Australia beyond the desert of the Murray.

In these circumstances, his Honour, the Superintendent of Port Phillip, has recommended that the Murray River should be continued as the boundary of Port Phillip to the Lake Alexandrina and the ocean, and that the colony of South Australia should be compensated for the loss of whatever available territory it may sustain in that direction in some other quarter. In the propriety of this recommendation I entirely concur ; and as Sir Thomas Mitchell has recently discovered an extensive tract of valuable pasture-land to the westward of the River Darling, but within the present limits of New South Wales, it would be quite practicable to give the colony of South Australia a sufficient extent of available land in that direction, to compensate for the loss of territory to the eastward of the Murray, without materially injuring the colony of New South Wales. For as the Murray is a navigable river, for at least several hundred miles in the lower part of its course, and will doubtless eventually prove highly valuable for steam-navigation to the colony of South Australia, while it can never be of any value in that way either to Port Phillip or to New South W ales, the new country discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell would not only be nearer Adelaide than Sydney, but much more easily accessible from the South Australian capital.

In regard to the extent of territory which South

PHILLIPSLAND.

Australia would have to surrender to Port Phillip, in order to have a permanent natural boundary, as well as a large tract of sterile country, between the available lands of both colonies, it does not exceed, at the very utmost, 13,000 square miles ; of which, as I have already observed, only a very small portion, towards Port Phillip, is available for the purposes of man. For as the Murray crosses the present boundary in latitude 34° south, and pursues a westerly course to 138° 40' east, from whence its future course is nearly due south to Encounter Bay and the ocean, while the coast line from Cape Northumberland in latitude 38° 2' south, and longitude 140° 37' east, (that is, twenty-three miles to the westward of the present boundary,) to the mouth of the Murray is nearly N.N.W., the extent of land proposed to be transferred from the one colony to the other is in reality much smaller than would at first sight be supposed. In short, it cannot be believed that if Her Majesty's Government had been at all aware of the nature of the country, any other boundary would have been assigned to South Australia than the Murray River in the lower part of its course.

Supposing, then, that the future boundary of Phillipsland should, on the one hand, be the coast line from Cape Howe to the mouth of the Murray, and on the other, a line drawn from Cape Howe to Mount Kosciuszko, and continued to the nearest sources of the Tumut River, and along that river till it falls into the Murrumbidgee, and from thence along the latter river and the Murray to the Lake Alexandrina and the Southern Ocean at Encounter Bay, the space included within these limits would comprise an area of upwards of 130,000 square miles, that is, an area at least equal to the whole superficial extent of Great Britain, and Ireland, and the island of Van Diem an 's Land.*

Square Miles.

* The superficial extent of England and Wales is 57,680 Do. Scotland, . . 27,794

Total area of Great Britain and Ireland,

112,931

DISCOVERY OF THE COAST LI>"E.

The eastern part of the coast line of Phillipsland was discovered so early as the year 1797. by Mr. Bass, a surgeon in the Eoyal Xavy, who was then on duty in the Colony of New South Wales, and who also discovered at the same time the Straits that bear his name, separating the mainland of Australia from the island of Yan Dieman's Land. Mr. Bass — whose irrepressible ardour and superior ability in the cause of geographical discovery were fully appreciated and seconded to the utmost of his ability by Captain (afterwards Admiral) Hunter, who was then Governor of Xew South Wales — was furnished with a whale boat, a crew of six volunteers, and six weeks' provisions ; and, with this meagre equipment, he discovered Shoal Haven and Twofold Bay on the Pacific, doubled Cape Howe, Earn Head, and Wilson's Promontory, the southern extremity of the Australian land, and entering Western Port, which he also discovered, and in which he remained thirteen days, returned in safety to Port Jackson. " A voyage," observes Captain Flinders, in reference to this extraordinary expedition, " expressly undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in which 600 miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous climate, was explored, has not perhaps its equal in the annals of maritime history. The public will award to its high-spirited and able conductor — alas ! now no more — an honourable place in the list of those whose ardour stands most conspicuous for the promotion of useful knowledge." *

The southern coast to the westward, from 140° 10' E., about forty miles within the present limits of the Colony of South Australia, to Cape Schank, in 144° 50' E. at the western entrance of Western Port, was

As the island of Van Dieman's Land is considerably smaller than Ireland, its superficial extent is in all probability not more than from 18 ; 000 to 20,000 square miles. The superficial extent of the whole kingdom of Holland does not exceed 9400 square miles.

* Flinders' Voyages of Di^overy to the Terra Ausiralis. Introduction. Vol. i. 5 p. 120.

PHILLIPSLAND.

discovered, in the year 1800, by Capt. James Grant, R.N., in the brig Lady Nelson, on her voyage out from England to Port Jackson. As Captain Grant, however, had left a bight on the coast unexplored, to the westward of Cape Schank, Captain King, R.X., who had in the meantime succeeded Captain Hunter as Governor of New South Wales, dispatched Lieutenant John Murray, R.N., who succeeded Captain Grant in the command of the Lady Nelson, to examine this bight ; and the result of that expedition was the discovery of the splendid inlet of Port Phillip by Lieutenant Murray, in the month of January 1802. It is customary on such occasions, for a subaltern officer making an important discovery, to leave the honour of giving a name to it to his superior officer ; and it is highly creditable to Governor King that he took advantage of the favourable opportunity which was thus afforded him of testifying his own honourable feelings, by naming this magnificent inlet after his former commander, Governor Phillip, to whose favour and patronage he had been mainly indebted for his advancement in the service. Lieutenant Murray was a Scotchman, from Edinburgh, and in honour of his native city he named a bluff mountain near the entrance of the Port, of upwards of a thousand feet in height, Arthur 's Seat, from its supposed resemblance to that striking feature in the picturesque scenery of the Scottish metropolis.* About ten weeks after its discovery by Lieutenant Murray, Port Phillip was visited by Captain Flinders, in the course of his outward voyage

* " The southern shore of this noble harbour is bold high land in general, and not clothed, as all the land of Western Port is, with thick brush, but with stout trees of various kinds, and in some places falls nothing short, in beauty and appearance, of Greenwich Park. Away to the eastward, at the distance of about twenty miles, the land is mountainous. There is one very high mountain in particular, which, in the meantime, I named Arthur's Seat, from its resemblance to a mountain of that name a few miles from Edinburgh." — Extract of Lieutenant Murray's Report to Governor King.

DISCOVERY OF THE COAST LINE.

from England in the discovery ship Investigator, who 6b serves respecting it, that " on the one hand it is capable of receiving and sheltering a larger fleet of ships than ever jet went to sea ; whilst on the other, the entrance, in its whole width, is scarcely two miles, and nearly half of it is occupied by the rocks lying off Point Xepean, and by shoals on the opposite side." *

As there is reason to believe that the recommendation of His Honour, the Superintendent of Port Phillip, that the boundary of that province should be extended to the mouth of the Murray Paver in Encounter Bay, will meet with the consideration and attention it deserves, it may not be out of place to add. that the discovery of the rest of the coast line, to the North. North-westward, was effected by a distinguished French navigator in the year 1802. On the 9th of April of that year. Captain, afterwards Admiral, Baudin, of the French discovery ship Geographe, and Captain Flinders, of the Brixish discovery ship Investigator, spoke each other in lat. 35° 40' S., and long, 138 Q 58' E. — the former from Van Dieman's Land, where he had been examining the northern and southern coasts of that island, which Captain Flinders and Mr. Bass had circumnavigated in the year 1798, and the latter from the discovery and survey of the entire line of coast extending from Nayts' Land to Cape Jervis and Encounter Bay. Captain Flinders communicated to Captain Baudin the principal discoveries he had made to the westward, and particularly those of Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs, and Kangaroo Island. Captain Baudin, however, named the whole of this land Terre Napoleon ; the two Galfs being named respectively Golfe Bonaparte and Golfe Josephine, and Kangaroo Island UIsU Decre's. But the real Terre Napoleon, that is, the full extent of the original discoveries of Captain Baudin, reaches from 138° 58' E., the western extremity of Encounter Bay, to Cape

* i lingers, uhi si p, a i. "2 1 8.

PHILLIPSL AND.

Buffon in 140° 10' E., comprising only about fifty leagues of coast ; the land to the westward having been previously seen and surveyed by Captain Flinders, and that to the eastward by Captain Grant.

Although the most remarkable feature in the physical character of Phillipsland is the great extent of comparatively level country which it comprises, it is nevertheless traversed in various directions by mountain chains and ridges, of various extent and of considerable elevation. Numerous detached hills also, of from 500 to 1500 feet in perpendicular height, are scattered over the country in all directions, which serve to diversify its general aspect, and especially to relieve the monotony of the plains. The same agreeable effect results from a number of picturesque lakes that are scattered over the level portions of the country, and that tend greatly to enliven the scenery ; for although there are some of these lakes that are by no means particularly interesting, there are others eminently so, and such as, in Europe, would vie with some of the celebrated lakes of Scotland, Switzerland, and Italy.

The principal chain of mountains in Phillipsland is the great Warragong Chain, called also the Snowy Mountains or Australian Alps. Of this mountain chain, which divides Phillipsland from New South Wales, to the north eastward, Mount Kosciuszko, which, according to Count Strzelecki, attains an elevation of 6500 feet, is one of the highest peaks. For a great portion of the year these mountains are covered with snow, which indeed never disappears from the higher peaks ; and in their numerous and extensive ramifications most of the rivers of Phillipsland take their rise, The Snowy Mountains are merely the southern portion of that extensive chain which traverses the Australian continent from north to south — like the Andes of South America — at a comparatively small distance from the eastern coast. To the southward they terminate in a bold headland, running out into Bass' Straits, called Wilson's Promontory, which, according to the graphic

MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS.

description of Flinders, " is a lofty mass of hard granite, of about twenty miles long, by from six to fourteen in breadth. The soil upon it is shallow and barren, though the brushwood, dwarf gum-trees, and some smaller vegetation, which mostly covers the rocks, give it a deceitful appearance to the eye of a distant observer." * The Snowy Mountains cover an area of 7000 square miles.

The next considerable range of mountains is the Mount Macedon Range — so called by Sir Thomas Mitchell, because Philip was king of Macedon, and Mount Macedon, a syenitic mountain, is one of the principal mountains of Phillipsland. The range commences about thirty-five miles N.N.W. of Melbourne, and traverses nearly a degree of latitude, first in a westerly and then in a northerly direction.

About twenty-five miles to the westward of this range there is a third, called the Bunninyong or Brisbane Eange, running north and south, and traversing nearly a degree of latitude. Mount Bunninyong, its southern termination, is 1570 feet in perpendicular height. This mountain, which is somewhat detached from the range, is of volcanic origin, but the basis of the rest of the range is schist us.

About fifty miles to the westward of the Bunninyong Range is another of a granitic base, called by Sir Thomas Mitchell the Pyrenees, terminating to the southward in Mount Cole, a lofty mass of granite. The course of the Pyrenees is north-westerly.

From thirty to forty miles to the westward of the Pyrenees is another range, called by Sir Thomas Mitchell the Grampians, terminating to the southward in Mount Sturgeon, a conspicuous mass of granite, rising to the height of 1070 feet above the level of the plain, from which it springs like a perpendicular rock in the midst of the ocean. Mount Abrupt, immediately to the north-eastward of Mount Sturgeon, is 1700 feet in perpendicular height ; but Mount William, at

* Flinders' Voyages, &c, I. Introduction. P. 115.

PHILLIPSLAND.

the eastern extremity of this range. where it deflects to the north-westward, is not less than 4500 feet high. The course of the Grampians to Mount William is north-easterly, and the range traverses nearly a degree of latitude.

To the northward of Portland Bay. near the present boundary of the province, there is a range, neither oi great extent nor of great elevation, called the Rifle Range ; and along the coast, to the eastward of Cape Otway. there is a lofty range, called the Marrack Hills, of which there is as yet comparatively little known, from the impenetrable character of its exuberant vegetation. *• The whole of this land." says Captain Flinders. " is high ; the elevation of the uppermost parts being not less than 2000 feet. The rising hills are covered with wood of a deep green foliage, and without any vacant spaces of rock or sand ; so that I judged this part cf the coast to exceed in fertility all that had yet fallen under observation/' *