The destruction of Victoria
When Captain James Cook discovered Australia in 1770. the very first part he discovered was Point Hicks in Victoria. He did not land there but sailed North and landed at Botany Bay where he planted the British flag and claimed the land for the Crown of England. Settlement of the new colony did not occur until 1777, following the American war of independence in 1776 and the Americans refused to take further British convicts and a new colony was needed to house those whom the British prisons could not contain. The entire country was known as New South Wales but in 1803 efforts were made to create a settlement in the Southern region, but poor locations were selected, and the early attempts were mostly unsuccessful. Whaler William Dutton built at Portland in 1829 and then in the 1830’s pastoralist John Batman from Tasmania, explored the area around Port Phillip Bay and sailed up the Yarra River. Landing on the North bank of the river near what is now the site of the old Customs house f