vicinity of Port Philip and Twofold Bay, thrown open to the numerous intending purchasers, who are at present anxiously waiting for the annexation of these districts to the present colonial territory. In the former of these localities,—in which a government settlement was formed and speedily abandoned, through some extraordinary and unaccountable mismanagement, in the year 1804,—a settlement of squatters from Van Dieman's Land has been formed during the last two years; and so highly eligible has the situation been found for a permanent settlement, that it already contains a population of upwards of 200 persons, possessing or having the management of 30,000 sheep, with a proportionable number of horses and cattle. The whole of this agricultural stock and population has been imported into Port Philip from Van Dieman's Land during the last two years or thereabouts; there being now no fewer than eight or ten colonial vessels constantly employed in the transport of stock of all kinds to that settlement from Hobart Town and Launceston. The extent of available land of the first quality, which has already been discovered in the immediate vicinity of Port Philip, amounts to upwards of three millions of acres; but the nature of the country beyond a moderate distance from the settlement is as yet unknown.
