Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/615

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WESTERN PORT ABANDONED, 1828. BATMAN. 587 authorized the abandonment of the place, and early in 1828 Darling withdrew the whole establishment. But in Van Diemen's Land John Batman, one of those men who (on account of the faculty possessed by Hamilton Hume of divining then- way through unknown tracts) were called "good bushmen," had in 1827 applied for a grant of land at Western Port. He induced Mr. J. T. Gellibrand to join him. They proposed to take live stock to the value of from ^64000 to £5000 to the spot where Batman would reside. But Governor Darling wrote: *' Acknowledge, and inform them that no determination having been come to with respect to the settlement at Western Port, it is not in my power to comply with their request." Batman, thus foiled for the time, nursed his project until 1835, when he was more successful. At King George's Sound, Major Lockyer, the com- mandant, selected the site of Albany, where a military post was kept until it was transferred (1830) from the control of New South Wales to the young colony formed at Swan Eiver in Western Australia. Captain Stirling, E.N., had joined in exploring expedi- tions in New South Wales, and had subsequently formed a settlement at Eaffles Bay. He had surveyed Swan Eiver in 1827. His report led to a project to form a settlement there. Mr. Barrow wrote from the Admiralty to the Colonial Office (1828), that with Western Port, King George's Sound, and Swan Eiver *' on the south and west, and Eaffles Bay on the north, I think we may consider ourselves in unmolested possession of the great continent."^ In 1829, Captain Fremantle, H.M.S. Challenger (des- patched from India to Swan Eiver) formally took possession of "all that part of New Holland which is not included within the territory of New South Wales." - The Earl of Ripon in 1833 thought the anxieties of 1826 groundless. He wrote : ** The present settlement at Swan River owes its origin^you may perhaps be aware, to certain false rumours which had reached the Government of the intentions of a foreign power to establish a colony) on the West Coast of Australia. The design was for a time given up entirely on grounds of public economy, and would not have been resumed but for the offer of a party of gentlemen to embark in an undertaking of this nature at their own risk upon receiving extensive grants of land, and on a certain degree of protection and assistance for a limited period heiiwf, secured to them by the Government."