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.[1] 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 the first time, we read in his volumes the true story of the first discovery and subsequent exploration of this province, given in the exact words of the men who did the work.
But for some of these missing documents Mr. Labilliere sought in vain; and the Journals of Grimes and Knopwood, now published, are of that number.
These fill up gaps in his collection, and their value will be best seen when read in connection with his full and clear narrative, which at the same time has rendered it unnecessary in this place to do more than sketch-in a few outlines left by Mr. Labilliere untouched.
The fears of Governor King at the beginning of the century that France had a design to establish herself somewhere in Australia—to convert Western Port perhaps into a second Pondicherry—lent weight to the concurrent testimony of Bass, Grant, Murray, and Flinders, as to the suitability of the south coast as a place for settlement; and the expedition of Lieutenant-Colonel Collins was the prompt result determined on by the British Government. But meantime Governor King saw fit to have a more particular survey made of Port Phillip. For this purpose the colonial schooner Cumberland, of 29 tons (the same in which Flinders, exactly twelve months afterwards, was made prisoner in the Isle of France), was equipped in Sydney, and placed in charge of Lieutenant Charles Robbins of H.M.S. Buffalo. Robbins carried despatches to the French Commodore Baudin, then known to be on the coast, in case he should fall in with him. Besides the crew, the party consisted of Charles Grimes, the Acting Surveyor-General of New South Wales; Dr. McCallum, surgeon; James Meehan, a surveyor; and James Flemming, a man in whom the Governor had great confidence, who was to observe the nature of the country explored. Their orders were to "walk round" Port Phillip.
The journal of the expedition, herein related, was kept by Flemming, and the chart attached is a fac-simile of the survey made by Grimes.
- ↑ "The Early History of Victoria: From its Discovery to its Establishment as a Self-governing Province of the British Empire." By F. P. Labilliere, Barrister-at-Law. London: Sampson Low and Co. May 1878.
