Goulburn Plains.

(From a Correspondant)

The Sydney Herald

20 February 1834

Everything goes on pretty smoothly here.

Major Breton, our Police Magistrate, is a very independent honourable man, and appears to have a desire to do every one justice; however, he has (as must be expected) a good deal to learn, which he is desirous and persevering in obtaining.

I observe that you do Captain Sturt's work a good deal of justice, and I fully fall in with your ideas on the subject, and anticipate even more from that discovery than you appear to do.

You will find by Hamilton Hume's Journal that he crossed the Hume and Oxley, both which rivers appear to me to be tributary to the Murray; and as upon the banks of them was found an open and fine country, not inferior to the Cowpastures, we may expect that from thence, following the rivers downwards to the Murray, the whole is of the same description, which I believe is a distance of six or seven hundred miles.

From this then it appears that from Lake Alexandrina, penetrating into the interior for four hundred miles northerly, and about seven hundred east and west, is an open country, at least fit for grazing purposes, which must be well watered, even in the driest seasons; and on many spots, I doubt not, is to be found land fit for the plough.

From this it appears to me that the capital of New South Wales ought to be there, and I doubt not will yet eclipse Sydney; a settlement is already formed there, and I shall emigrate with my flocks and herds, over land. I have the country so imprinted upon my mind's eye that I fancy there are but trifling obstacles in the way.

Monaro Plains are not more than eighty or a hundred miles from where Hume crossed the Hume River.

I have a station in that direction, and have now a desire to take a tour from my station to the Hume, which must at once open that part for our immediate grazing purposes. I do this by crossing the Alps, and am now upon the top of them with our stock.