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83 CHAPTER VI, PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. For some time Port Phillip was only a sheep walk. Twelve months after the first location there were 15,000 sheep, hut not two hundred settlers. It was thought to be a better home for quadrupeds than men. The natives were mistrusted. Several murders of shepherds had already occured. Then the cooler heads viewed the denunciatory proclamation of Governor Bourke, and feared to trust their property there as well as their lives. To he exposed to constant predatory attack, without the prospect of constabulary protection, and with the knowledge that they were acting in defiance of Constituted Authority, deterred many from crossing the Straits. The sage Governor of the island echoed the forebodings, when, addressing his council, in April 1836, he says, “ How far the future opening of that territory to the enterprize of immigrants, when His Majesty’s Government shall he pleased to sanction it, may affect the landed interests in this Colony, it is at present impossible to determine. Its tendency, if considered irrelatively, must apparently be, if not generally to lower, at least sen sibly to retard the future increase of rent.—Its proximity to Van Diemen’s J,and, however, must render the future settlement of the territory in question a matter of the highest interest to the inhabitants of this Colony, as regards its commercial, as well as its agricultural relations.” When, however, the Government acknowledged the set tlement and promised legal possession, and when, also, simultanously there came the brave news of Mitchell’s Australia Felix, a rush took place. Dr. Lang has thus described the impulse—“ It turned the heads of half the Colony of Van Diemen’s Land. It almost imme- G
