THE
CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.
CHAPTER I.
THE UNNAMED VILLAGE AND ITS BEGINNINGS.
SYNOPSIS:—First White Discoverer of the Yarra. —Selection of the Site of the Embryonic City. —Famous Flank March of Sir Thomas Mitchell. —Captain Stewart's Report. —The First Ordinance. —Limited Autocracy. —" Bearbrass." —Attack by Aboriginals. —A Black Protectorate. —Interesting Relics. —Early Bonifaces. —Population of the Colony in December, 1836. —Arrival of Sir Richard Bourke. —Batman and Fawkner. — White Foundation of the Colony. —Historical Curiosities. —Early Title Deeds of Land from Natives. —First Arbitration Award in the Colony.
THOUGH an oft-told tale, it may be as well to secure a thorough starting point by indicating the dates of a few remarkable events—the chronological symbols that act as way-marks to the commencement of those incidents which have, in so short a period, rendered Melbourne, as the Capital of Victoria, one of the marvels of ancient or modern colonization.
The first European who sighted this portion of the Australian Continent—the present Cape Everard, in Gippsland—on the 19th of April, 1770, was Lieutenant Hicks, an officer of the memorable expedition of Captain Cook; and on the 4th of June, 1798, Bass, an adventurous ship surgeon, whilst on a coasting expedition from Sydney, in a whale-boat, made Western Port. Lieutenant Murray discovered the bay of Port Phillip (15th February, 1802); and on January 20th, 1803, Mr. Grimes, the Acting Surveyor-General of New South Wales, arrived from Sydney, in charge of a party to examine the bay and "walk round" the adjacent country. On the 9th October, in the same year, Lieutenant Colonel Collins, as commandant of a convict expedition with a few free settlers, entered the Heads, and established himself near the now Sorrento; but, after a brief stay, deeming the place unsuited for a penal settlement, abandoned it and sailed away to Van Diemen's Land. Messrs. Hovell and Hume, in November, 1824, accomplished an overland journey, from Sydney to Port Phillip, in the course of which they crossed and named several rivers. They penetrated as far as Geelong and saw Port Phillip Bay, which Hovell mistook for Western Port, whilst Hume held differently, in consequence of information received from Mr. James Fleming, a member of the Grimes Survey Party. In 1826 some vague rumours of an intended French seizure of Western Port and Western Australia moved the British Government to take measures for the occupation of these places, and a military force was despatched from Sydney to Western Port. A landing was effected, and the eastern part of Phillip Island fortified; but, the scare dying out, the place was abandoned in less than a year. In January, 1827, John Batman, a resident of Van Diemen's Land, applied, for himself and others, to the New South Wales Government for permission to establish a settlement at Western Port, but the application was refused. A Captain Wishart, whilst on a sealing voyage from Sydney in a cutter called the "Fairy," was driven by stress of weather, on St. Patrick's Day, into a bay to the westward, which he named "Port Fairy," after his little vessel. Portland Bay, in 1828-29, was visited by Mr. William Dutton, in the course of some sealing ventures, and it was he who put up the first house on the present site of Portland. He returned to the place occasionally until 1832,
