‘While in Europe [the British settlement] is spoken of as the colony of Botany Bay, as a matter of fact there is no settlement there,’ writes François Péron.1
‘Botany Bay is a humid, marshy, rather sterile, unhealthy place, and the anchorage for vessels is neither good nor safe.
‘Port Jackson, 13 leagues from Botany Bay [actually, the distance is just two nautical leagues or 12 kilometres] is unquestionably one of the finest ports in the world. It was in these terms that Governor Phillip spoke of it, and certainly he did not exaggerate when he added that a thousand ships of the line could easily manoeuvre within it.
‘The town of Sydney has been founded in the heart of this superb harbour. It is already considerable in extent and, like its population, is growing rapidly. Here resides the governor and all the principal government officers.’
On the downside: ‘The environs of Sydney are sandy and not very fertile. In almost all of them there is a scarcity of water during the hot summer months.’2
He is more impressed with Parramatta, inland from Sydney, ‘from which it can be reached by a small river called the Parramatta River. Small vessels can proceed close to the town. Larger ones have to discharge some distance away. A very fine road leads overland from Sydney to Parramatta. Some very good houses have been built here and there along the road. Already, people who have made considerable fortunes are to be found there.
‘The land around Parramatta is of much better quality than that of Sydney. The country has been cleared to a considerable extent, and grazing in particular offers important advantages.
‘Toongabbie, further inland, is still more fertile. Its pastures are excellent. It is here that the flocks belonging to the government have been established.’3
From the mouth of the Hawkesbury River at Broken Bay, north of Port Jackson, Péron sails upriver to the town of Hawkesbury (now Windsor), the largest town in New Holland after Sydney.
‘Hawkesbury, 60 miles from Sydney [actually 37 miles or 60 kilometres], is in the vicinity of the Blue Mountains. It is the richest and most fruitful of the English settlements. It may be regarded as the granary of the colony, being capable by itself of supplying nearly all the wants of the settlement. The depth of soil in some parts is as much as 80 feet [24 metres] and it is truly prodigious in terms of fertility. These incalculable advantages are due to the alluvial deposits of the Hawkesbury River, which descends in cascades from the summits of the Blue Mountains and is deposited on the plain, loaded with a thick mud of a quality eminently suitable for promoting vegetable growth.
‘Unfortunately, despite having benefits similar to those of the Nile, it shares its disadvantages. It is subject to frightful floods that overwhelm everything. Houses, crops and flocks – everything is destroyed unless men and animals save themselves by fleeing quickly. These unexpected floods are sometimes so prodigious that the water has been known to rise to 60 and even 80 feet above the normal level.
‘But what gives great importance to the town of Hawkesbury [Windsor] is the facility for large ships to reach it by river. This part of New Holland will be a source of rapid and very large fortunes.
‘It will be seen that this colony, which people in Europe still believe to be relegated to the muddy marches of Botany Bay, is daily absorbing more and more of the interior of the continent. Cities are being built which, at present in their infancy, present evidence of future grandeur. Spacious and well-constructed roads facilitate communication with all parts, while major rivers render access by water more convenient still, and less expensive.’4
In his determination to promote the colony as a prize worth snatching, Péron tends to gild the lily. There is as yet no network of roads to ‘all parts’ and, far from being ‘spacious and well-constructed’, early colonial roads are little more than rambling, rutted tracks.
‘But the English government is no longer confining its operations to the eastern coast of New Holland,’ he writes. ‘Westernport, in the extreme south, beyond Wilsons Promontory, is already engaging its attention. At the time of our departure a new settlement there was being considered. The government is balancing the expedience of founding a new colony there or Port Phillip, to the north [of Westernport].
‘It is inevitable, I say, that such a step will soon be taken.’5
Péron’s information, gleaned from conversations with Governor King, is accurate. King has recommended to the British government that a settlement be established at Port Phillip. The reason, as Péron has correctly deduced, is to stake a claim there ahead of the French. The plan is doomed to failure, however.
In October 1803, two ships from Sydney, carrying some 400 people – mostly convicts – sail into Port Phillip Bay to found a settlement near what is now Sorrento. Less than three months later, mainly due to a scarcity of fresh water, the settlement is abandoned.
Péron is sure that another reason for the urgent and thus far ill-considered moves to establish new settlements is that ‘whatever advantages Port Jackson may possess, it suffers from a grave disadvantage in the narrowness of its entry. Two frigates could by themselves blockade the most numerous fleet within.
‘So then, the English, already masters of the eastern coast of New Holland, now wish to occupy the immense extent of the west and south-west coasts which contain very fine harbours, namely that which they call Westernport, Port Phillip, Port Flinders [Port Augusta in Spencer Gulf, South Australia], Port Esperance [Tasmania], discovered by D’Entrecasteaux, King George Sound [Tasmania], etc.
‘Their ambition, always aspiring, is not confined to New Holland itself, vast as it may be. Van Diemen’s Land, and especially the magnificent D’Entrecasteaux Channel, has excited their greed. Another settlement has probably been founded there since our departure from Port Jackson.’
Again, he is correct. In September 1803, a penal colony is established on the Derwent River, off the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. The small settlement, at Risdon Cove, on the eastern shore of the river, is soon relocated to Sullivan’s Cove on the opposite shore, where fresh water is more plentiful. The settlement at Sullivan’s Cove is later named after Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.
‘Several reasons will have determined it,’ says Péron. ‘Firstly, the indispensable necessity, for the English, of keeping away from their settlements in that part of the world rivals and neighbours as redoubtable as the French. Secondly, the desire to prevent other nations occupying impregnable ports whence their important trade with New Zealand might be destroyed, and their principal settlement itself [Sydney] eventually shaken. Thirdly, the fertility of the soil in that part of Van Diemen’s Land. And above all, the hope of discovering in the vast granite plateaux, which seems here to enclose the world, mines of precious metals or some new substances unknown to the stupid aboriginals of the country.’6
Again, Péron’s speculation is accurate, if only up to a point. Gold, silver, lead, tin and copper will be discovered in Tasmania in the years to follow, as will rare minerals such as magnetite, antimony, calcite and zircon. Few of these minerals will be in commercial quantities, however, and among the ‘new substances’ left untouched by the supposedly ‘stupid’ Aborigines are arsenic and asbestos.