CHAPTER LI. SOLDIERS, CEMETERIES, POUNDS, A N D APOSTLES.
SYNOPSIS.-Colonel Collins' Garrison Orders.-Departure of Colonel Collins—Military Changes.-The First Military Court-martial. - The First Military Funeral. - Military Gossip. - Burial Grounds. — Burial Hill.-Early Interments-The First Monolith.-The Jewish Burial Ground.-Funeral of Miss Davis.-Prayers Read by Mr. Michael Cashmore.—Mr. Lewis Hart's Interment.-The Old Cemetery.-The First Male Interment There.The First Female Interment—John Batman's Funeral—Memoranda of Cemetery Grants to Denominations.—A Funereal Tariff.—Primitive Funerals and Undertakers.-The First "Professional" Undertaker.—Resurrectionism and Ghosts.—Abduction of a "Lady" Corpse.—Point Ormond Burial Ground.—The Graves at Ring's Island.Melbourne General Cemetery.—Pounds.—A
Marvellous Magpie.
fN 1878 there was issued from the Government Printing Office a Parliamentary paper intituled, Early Hislorical Records of Port Phillip, and it would not be easy to find more curiously { interesting reading, as it treats of the exploration of Port Phillip by M r . Charles Grimes, the i | N e w South Wales Surveyor-General, in 1802-3; and the abortive attempt of Lieut. Governor Collins to found a convict colony at Sorrento in 1803-4. Its contents are three-fold: (a) The Journal of Exploration, {/>) T h e Order Book of Collins, and (c) T h e Journal of the Rev. Robert Knopwood, Episcopalian chaplain, appointed to the cure of souls in the projected settlement. Such historically invaluable relics would, in all probability, have never seen the light of publicity but for the praiseworthy industry of Mr. John J. Shillinglaw, the Secretary of the Central Board of Health, w h o succeeded in disinterring in the Colonial Secretary's office (Sydney), the Grimes' Reliquioz. T h e second mentioned was supplied by Mr. C. E. Collett, Sub-librarian of the Tasmanian ParLiament ; and the third is a presentation to the Victorian Government by Mr. J. E. Calder, an ex-Surveyor-General of Tasmania. I avail myself of the opportunity n o w offered to testify to the laudable public spirit manifested by Mr. Shillinglaw (no m e a n authority himself in all appertaining to our early annals), and to thank him for his invariable courtesy to myself, his readiness to oblige whenever consulted, and the kindly interest taken in m y efforts to save from oblivion m a n y a by-gone incident that would otherwise have been irretrievably lost.
MILITARY.
The first armed force stationed in Port Phillip dates back more than thirty years before the arrival of either Batman or Fawkner. Accompanying the Collins Convict Expedition was a detachment of Royal Marines, the rank and file of which consisted of:—First Lieutenant, William Sladden; Second Lieutenant, J. M . Johnson; Third Lieutenant, Edward Lord; Sergeants, 3; Corporals, 3; Drummer, 1 : Fifer, 1 ; and 39 privates. Their duty was to maintain order, and protect life and property at the Convict Settlement at Sorrento, where they were under canvas. David Collins, the C o m m a n d a n t or Governor of the little colony, was also a Colonel of Marines, and on the 18th October, 1803, as Commander-in-Chief, he issued the subjoined "Garrison Orders":— " T h e Lieut.-Colonel on taking c o m m a n d of the detachment of Royal Marines, landed at Port Phillip, entertains a hope that they will all feel a just sense of the honourable situation in which they are placed. They have been selected by their Sovereign to compose the garrison for the protection of this infant settlement. H e trusts this will stimulate them to use their best exertions, and enable the Lieut.-Colonel to report to the Secretary of State that such a trust has not been unworthily placed in them. H e hopes they all know that obedience to orders, sobriety, and cleanliness form the
