"For more than half a century, the connection between Great Britain and her Australian possessions has been one of growing interest; and men of the highest eminence have foreseen and foretold the ultimate importance of that vast continent, within the memory of living man, the roving savage held precarious though unquestioned empire. Of the Australian shores, the North-western was the least known, an became, towards the close of the year 1836, a subject of much geographical speculation. Former navigators were almost unanimous in believing that the deep bays known to indent a large portion of...