Report from the Select Committee on the Disposal of Lands in the British Colonies; Together with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix.

This is a rare or used book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

Ordered by The House of Commons to be Printed 1 August 1836. F'scap folio. Orig. blue printed wrappers (re-spined; edges slightly chipped; back wrapper soiled). (viii 260pp.). With folding engrv. map of the grants in the Port Phillip District hand-col. in outline (detached from spine; several tears neatly repaired with clear tape; one short unrepaired tear to edge). Uncut. Some occasional foxing/browning to pages; endpapers soiled; very small insect hole to edge of pp.21-46 & pp.125-184. F. 2129: Contains (inter alia) accounts of the granting of lands to the Australian Agricultural Company and the Van Diemen's Land Company and a valuable correspondence respecting the Settlement of Port Phillip and Twofold Bay including a letter from John Batman dated 25 June 1835 recounting his occupation of the Port Phillip lands and his dealings with the natives and letters covering the subsequent negotiations with the Crown for a recognition of the alleged title of the Port Phillip Association (pp.225-38). Copies of the deeds executed by the aborigines are at pp.228-9. It appeared to the Committee that the whole of the arrangements connected with the sale of land - including both the price and the precise mode of sale - should be placed under the charge of a Central Land Board resident in London and made responsible. It should be charged also with directing the stream of emigration which might be expected to flow into the colonies from the Mother Country. A most important inquiry in the course of which E. G. Wakefield Colonel R. Torrens and other authorities on colonization schemes and emigration gave evidence.