cleared and cultivated in the midst of the woods." Appearances were afterwards found to be worse than reality.
York was now a thriving settlement, and in 1837 there were estimated to be between thirty and forty settlers scattered over the district. The first town lots were granted in July and November, 1835, to Messrs. Bland and Trimmer, but it was some time afterwards that the village became at all pretentious. The Clarksons and the Hardeys ran their flocks over a large estate named Wilberforce, which, selected when Sir James Stirling made his first visit to the district, comprised 18,000 acres. The Burges family had pushed its way along the valley watered by the Avon. The three enterprising brothers, W. and L. and S. Burges, went among the trees adorning the eastern slopes of the range which culminates in Mount Bakewell, and chose a fertile spot on the banks of the river. Upon a commanding site they erected a modest cottage overlooking a small wooded valley, the river hedged by denser trees, and the hills on the other side. The course of the Avon was here straight and dark, with she-oak, gum, and other trees growing right to the water's edge, forming a natural avenue. It was a beautiful retreat; the winds murmured among the she-oaks, and the birds were so numerous as to make the spot quite a vocal grove. The old house is still inhabited by descendants of the pioneer family. Mr. S. Parker, a Kentish farmer, was utilising his land about ten miles on the other side of York. He brought to the colony implements and goods, and began his colonial career on a grant at Guildford. Then he joined in the general exodus to the inland pastoral country. Some of his sons and grandchildren continue to labour in the district. Messrs. Brockman, Lennard, Moore, Gregory, Yule, Camfield, Tanner, Purkiss, Hamersley, Phillips, Irwin, Mackie, Monger, Walters, Cheyne, Knight, Drummond, Meares, Foley, and Macdermott owned land, or were engaged in pastoral or agricultural pursuits; some in the York, some in the Beverley, and some in the Northam district. In 1838, Samuel Pole Phillips reached the colony in the ship Montreal. He was the son of John Phillips, J.P., of Culham, Oxfordshire, and was educated for the Church, but eventually elected to devote his energies to colonisation in Western Australia. Upon his arrival he purchased the land of Mr. A. Waylen, in the Toodyay district, and founded the Culham estate, ten miles from the present town of Newcastle. It was charmingly situated, but the solemnity of the remote valley was often rendered noisy by the presence of scores of natives quarrelling near the homestead. Mr. Phillips was determined and impartial, and suffered little at the hands of the dusky tribes, who, indeed, rendered him assistance in developing his property. His pioneer cattle were purchased for £20, and his horses for £70 up to £150 per head.
Matters remained very much as they were at Augusta, but members of the Bussell family were at work on the Vasse River. They had already founded the Cattle Chosen estate, so named when, wandering through the country to choose a suitable situation, Mr. Bussell came to rich meadows upon which a sleek cow pastured. The site of a town was marked out in the Vasse district, and received the name of Busselton, in compliment to the energetic pioneer. A Mr. Chapman took up the first lot in Busselton early in 1837. Messrs. Bussell and Chapman, with a few soldiers, were the only settlers residing in the district in 1838. Stern trials were theirs for some years. Vasse received its appellation from the Baudin expedition, which lost a man of that name there in 1801-2. In 1838 the natives of the district remembered the man, for he had lived among them for two or three years. They treated him kindly and fed him but exposure and poor diet combined with anxiety, weakened him. Then the natives went out on a hunting expedition, and when they returned they found him dead near the river.
The first settlers took up their residence in the Leschenault district early in 1836. Mr. Robert Scott, a mere youth, with his brothers, Daniel and John, and William Craig, Thomas Robertson, and a wheelright journeyed overland from Perth, under special arrangement with Sir James Stirling. Mr. Scott's father made an agreement with the Governor, by which he was to cultivate His Excellency's land on the Preston River, to perform the location duties, and in return was to be awarded part of the land. The young men erected a hut on the Preston, two and a half miles from the present town of Bunbury. In the first year they cleared and planted about five acres of soil, and by great industry soon had 150 acres under cultivation. Some soldiers were quartered near at hand to protect them, but the natives proved friendly, and often laboured on the farm all day long in payment for food that was given them. Whalers soon put into the estuary for provisions. In 1838, Mr. Bull, with Lieutenant Armstrong, began work in the district. They possessed a droll sort of East India establishment, and employed seven Indians—hill coolies—under the charge of a Scotchman named Miller. As a commencement of flocks and herds they had one haunchbacked bull and two hairy sheep.
The site of the town of Pinjarra was marked out, and in 1836-37, Messrs. George and Moses Stokes and Richard Smith were granted the first allotments.
Another indication of progress was testified by the establishment of a bank. For long years settlers agitated for the opening of such an institution, but they could not sufficiently interest English capitalists, nor were they able to form a company among themselves. The Agricultural Society advocated its formation, public meetings ardently supported the movement, and the newspaper wrote convincing articles as to its necessity. Agitation was incessant throughout 1836, and finally, on January 17, 1837, a prospectus was issued, calling for subscribers among colonists. It was signed by L. Samson, S. Moore, G. Leake, M. Macdermott, P. Brown, and W. Habgood, with A. H. Stone as secretary and J. Lewis as treasurer.
The prospectus referred to this long agitation, and conceded that, in the earlier years of colonisation, no bank could have been conducted with success. While the colony derived every article of consumption from foreign production, it was continually being drained of its specie, and no permanent circulation could have been carried on, and no bank, however solid its original structure might have been, could have sustained its payments and credit. But progression had now dissipated these difficulties. The actual necessaries of life were said to be produced by the labour of colonists on their own soil, and the payments made abroad were described as only for articles of manufacture, of comfort, or of luxury, which were being met by the small, but annually increasing exportation of wool and other produce. So much for the justification of establishing the bank.
The capital was set down at £10,000, to be divided into 1,000 shares of £10 each. Such a small sum was warranted to enable both the capitalist and the labourer to become shareholders. To the former it offered a secure and profitable investment, to the latter it had all the advantages of a Savings Bank, with the advantages of equal partnership in the concern. As a bank of deposit it would bring into active utility and profit sums of money lying dormant and useless in private hands. Not only this, the agricultural, trading, and operative classes would derive immediate benefit. One would be able to dispose of his produce and stock for cash payments,
