lend money on mortgage and to persons
engaged in fisheries; to undertake public works on security of tolls:
but they were debarred from banking and commerce.

Lord Bathurst consulted Colonel Sorell: he was favorable to the company;
but forwarned them that no large blocks of fertile land remained
unlocated. The company received a grant of 250,000 acres, to be taken on
the north-west coast in one square block; bounded by Bass's Strait on
the north; on the westward by the ocean; and by a line drawn from shore
to shore. After some debate, this land was valued to the company at two
shillings and sixpence per acre, and the whole quit-rent charged, was
"four hundred and sixty-eight pounds, sixteen shillings:" redeemable at
twenty years purchase--L9,575. In the measurement, one-fourth allowed
for useless land. The employment of convicts entitled the company to
remission of quit-rent; L16 annually each man.

Mr. Edward Curr, at first the secretary of the company, became their
agent. Having some time resided in Van Diemen's Land, he had returned to
England, where he published a book on the state of the country,
remarkable for its clear narrative and sober delineation. The first ship
dispatched by the company was the _Tramnere_ (1826), followed by the
_Caroline_. Some time was lost in selecting the settlement, and Circular
Head was chosen. On a closer inspection, the district was not found
encouraging. Near the shore the country is heavily timbered, and the
high lands towards the westward were found barren and cold. Mr. Curr
was anxious to bring his line as far possible towards the sun; but the
governor held him to the literal agreement, under an impression that the
grant was already improvident and excessive. The whole scheme was
distasteful to Arthur: a powerful company having interests of its own,
whose head-quarters were in London, might have been a counterpoise to
his influence, had it not been pushed to the extremity of an
inaccessible country. By the oversight or complaisance of Lord Bathurst,
the rule which made the outlay of capital the condition of a grant, was
not inserted in the covenant. The public works promised by the
proprietors were never undertaken, and their establishment was but a
larger farm than common. They ultimately obtained several blocks of
land, which gave them command of an intervening country of 150,000
acres, at Woolnorth; 20,000 at Circular Head, 10,000 at the Hampshire
Hills, 10,000 at the Middle