A Friend to Colonization

The Australian, Sydney

25 October 1836

Sir,

In the Monitor of the 19th instant, there appears a letter signed "A. Grazier," stating that Mr. Gellibrand, at the head of a Company of Vandemonians, without risk or capital, have seized on 140,000 Acres or Land, at Port Phillip, which they intend to cajole from the Government; and that many of the Graziers in the vicinity of Yass, Goulburn, and Bathurst, intend forming establishments there; at the same time calling upon the Editor of the paper in question to use his influence with Government to prevent the Vandemonians from polluting the sacred territory of New South Wales.

The Grazier contradicts his own assertions; for it must have required capital and enterprise to transport stock, shepherds, and overseers, (free men) and maintaining them there, from Van Diemen's Land to Port Phillip; and there must have been risk, in encountering the dangers of the seas, the natives, and numerous natives dogs; and I must take the liberty of letting the Grazier know that there are as many respectable and wealthy settlers engaged in that speculation, as Bathurst, Yass, or Goulburn can boast of; it is true they do not take the credit to themselves of making a new discovery, but they have taken up one which had been twice abandoned, as sterile, and wanting freshwater; will not the extensive plains of Goulbourn, Bathurst, and Yass, satisfy the avarice of this Grazier and his friends?

He reminds me of an anecdote of an Irish nobleman, who was so notorious for a griping disposition, that a certain Lord Lieutenant said of him, "that if he got all Ireland, he would require the Isle of Man as a potato garden; I presume the writer must be the same gentleman, or Grazier, from whose letter I saw an extract some time ago, stating that a fellow, a newly arrived emigrant, had the impudence to put up a section of land for sale within ten miles of his grazing ground, and that he must be opposed at all risks and not allowed to obtain it at the sale. This Grazier must cross the Murumbidgee, 150 miles from Bathurst, and travel 250 miles after, before he could arrive at Port Phillip.

If Van Diemen's Land belonged to some foreign nation, the jealousy of this Grazier might have some excuse, but when It is considered that it forms a portion of the British possessions, and that its inhabitants are as wealthy, and respectable, and enterprising as any in Now South Wales, if he is not a misanthrope, he need not fear coming in, contact with them, as he must find it quite impossible to keep the whole country to himself - and if envy does not bias his judgment, he must admit, that the first settlers in any Wilderness deserve some encouragement.

It is stated in letters from England, that the country south of the Murumbidgee is to be annexed to the Van Diemans Land Government, as approximating nearer an equal distribution of territory, making Launceston head quarters of the southern Government, which is within twenty-four hours sail of Port Phillip, and six hundred miles from hence. I fear the Grazier is a bad political economist, or he would not be such a churl about a few hundred acres of Forest Land, at the very extremity of location, and but lately taken within its limits; but it appears that he and his brothor Graziers only intend setting out on their long, unexplored, and consequently dangerous journey, which never may be put into execution, and certainly never would be even thought of only for the Vandemonians. Dr. Johnson said "that hell was paved with good intentions," which like those of the Yass Grazior have been strangled in their birth or vanished into thin air; let him content himself where he in as long as he is let alone, for as a man said on his death bed, he "knew where he was, but not where he was going."

Your's, &c. A Friend To Colonization. Sydney, Oct 21, 1836.