HOME
This sequence title, "Settlement" was a real team production. The sequence is constructed from archival sources including paintings made by Frederick Garling, letters, newspaper articles and early maps of Perth. Humphrey Bower wonderfully narrates these texts and Kingsley Reeve has created the sound world.
Here are the transcripts as selected by Nigel Jamieson.
"Here then, on a high bank, we pitched our tent. The richness of the soil, the bright foliage of the shrubs, the majesty of the surrounding trees, the abrupt, red-coloured banks of the river occasionally seen, the view of the blue summits of the mountains from which we were not far distant, made the scenery round this spot as beautiful as anything of the kind I had ever witnessed"
- James Stirling, 1827
“The only point to be settled is whether we should colonise the Swan River to which there is no objection other than the expense of the undertaking"
- Colonial under secretary Robert Hay
“Dear sir, I write to ascertain whether any objection would be made to the unsupported employment of private Enterprise" - James Stirling
“It is surely asking nothing unfair when we deem that a claim of 4 million acres for the four principal investors in The Syndicate not being appropriate"
- James Stirling
“We have no doubt that immigration will continue to be carried out in a rapid and Universal manner"
- The Sussex Advertiser
”We must report the prospects held out to the immigrants were completely delusive. Instead of the land being a sort of paradise it is for the most part little better than a Barren waste"
- Captain Dance
“The wretchedness of the ruined and disappointed is unspeakable" - Sydney Gazette 24th of July 1830
“More complete wretchedness you never beheld"
- The Leister Journal