We have now arrived at the period when it is necessary to record the settlement of Victoria, originally named Port Phillip from Governor Phillip, and afterwards Australia Felix by Sir Thomas Mitchell. We have already seen in Sir Thomas's expedition across Victoria, that emigrants from Van Diemen's Land were finding their way into it. Though that island was only settled in 1804, yet in 1838 its flocks were become too numerous for its pasturage. A sudden and determined effort was now, therefore, made to carry over the flocks and herds of Tasmania, to this fertile portion of the continent, and to found new and ample pastures there; but it is rather curious that this was done under the plea of kindness to the natives.

John Batman, who writes himself of Ben Lomond, Van Diemen's Land, informed Colonel Arthur, the governor of that island, in a letter dated May 25th, 1838, that at the expense, and in conjunction with several gentlemen, inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, he, a native of New South Wales, but for the last six years actively engaged in endeavouring to civilize the natives of Van Diemen's Land, had formed a project for civilizing the natives of Port Phillip. That to facilitate this object, he had procured eleven natives of New South Wales, who had acted under his guidance. These, no doubt, are the natives to whom Mr. Robinson alludes in his account of his transactions with the Van Diemen's Land blacks, and whom he had refused to have anything to do with, because they knew nothing of the language of the Tasmanian natives.