July. His Excellency Governor King, had done me the honour to visit the Investigator, and to accept of a dinner on board; on which occasion he had been received with the marks of respect due to his rank of Captain-General; and shortly afterwards, the Captains Baudin and Hamelin, with Monsieur Peron and some other French officers, as also Colonel Paterson, the Lieutenant-Governor, did me the same favour; when they were received under a salute of 11 guns.  The intelligence of peace which had just been received contributed to enliven the party; and rendered our meeting more particularly agreeable.  I showed to Captain Baudin my charts of the South Coast, containing the part first explored by him, and distinctly marked as his discovery.  He made no objection to the justice of the limits therein pointed out; but found his portion to be smaller than he had supposed, not having before been aware of the extent of the discoveries previously made by Captain Grant.

After examining the Chart, he said, apparently as a reason for not producing any of his own, that his charts were not constructed on board the ship; but that he transmitted to Paris all his bearings and observations, with a regular series of views of the land and from them the charts were to be made at a future time.

NAMING THE CONTINENT

Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term (Terra Australis), it would have been to convert it into Australia, as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS

+Source.+—­A Journal of a Tour of Discovery across the Blue Mountains, N.S.W. (Blaxland, 1823), Introduction and pp. 1, 22, 29-34

For many years the settlement in N.S.W. was confined to the coastal plains, owing to the impassability of the Blue Mountains.  In 1813 Gregory Blaxland, accompanied by Wentworth and Lawson, accomplished the passage, and opened vast plains for settlement.

TO JOHN OXLEY PARKER, ESQ., OF CHELMSFORD, ESSEX

London, Feb. 10th 1823.

Dear Sir,

Feelings of gratitude for your kind attention to me in the early part of life, have induced me to dedicate to you the following short Journal of my passage over the Blue Mountains, in the colony of New South Wales, under the persuasion that it will afford you pleasure at all times to hear that any of your family have been instrumental in promoting the prosperity of any country in which they may reside, however distant that country may be from the immediate seat of our Government.

Devoid as it is of any higher pretensions than belong to it as a plain unvarnished statement, it may not be deemed wholly uninteresting, when it is considered what important alterations the result of the expedition has produced in the immediate interests and prosperity of the Colony.  This appears in nothing more decidedly than the unlimited pasturage already afforded to the very fine flocks of Merino Sheep, as well as the extensive field opened for the exertions of the present, as well as future generations.  It has changed the aspect of the Colony, from a confined insulated tract of land, to a rich and extensive continent.