This was a very small number with which to occupy a large country; but Governor King thought that in the meantime they would be sufficient to assert a prior claim, and that the authorities in England could subsequently decide whether the settlement should be increased or withdrawn.

Governor King saw also another object in founding this new colony. He had some most unruly convicts in Sydney, who were only a source of trouble and annoyance to all the rest. It seemed to him an advantage to be able to send these off to a place by themselves, under specially severe discipline. In September, 1803, the two ships sailed up Storm Bay and into the mouth of the river Derwent. Lieutenant Bowen caused them to anchor on the right side of the estuary, in a little bay called Risdon Cove. The people were soon on shore, and pitched their tents on a grassy hill a little back from the water. Bowen went out to survey the country, while the convicts set to work to build huts for themselves; a little village soon appeared, and in the long grass that surrounded it a few sheep and goats were pastured for the use of the rising colony. The place was named Hobart Town, after Lord Hobart, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies. A month later Governor King sent forty-two convicts and fifteen soldiers to increase the strength of the settlement; and the little village was beginning to look populous, when, unexpectedly, there came a great accession from another source.

^{Governor Collins.}

2. Collins.—During this same year, 1803, the British Government, moved by fears of a French occupation, had resolved to form a settlement on the shores of Port Phillip.