This continued until 1812, when Hobart became the seat of government for the whole island. The political division was thus removed, but it will take more than an Act of Parliament to sponge away the imaginary line that constitutes in the minds of the people of Tasmania the division of the island into North and South.
Ironically, while it was an expedition from Port Phillip that founded Hobart, it was from rival Launceston that John Batman sailed back to that same Port Phillip and started the settlement which is now the city of Melbourne. In 1835 John Batman sailed from Launceston and landed on the banks of the Yarra where he bought 600,000 acres for a few blankets, knives, looking glasses, scissors and other implements beloved by savages. The eight chiefs presumably exhibited their title deeds before signing the transfer, but my knowledge does not go as far as that. Batman mentions that they duly signed, but he omits to say at what school they learned to write. The negotiations included an annual tribute, but unfortunately for the syndicate of fifteen purchasers the transaction was afterwards declared void, private individuals not being allowed to purchase from aboriginal races.

As weeds grow up before the more useful plants, so did the first public house in Launceston establish itself before the first church. In the lists of buildings recommended by Macquarie to Sorell in 1821 no churches appear (though a glebe house for the Chaplain at Hobart is included); but he is careful to suggest inns being opened in four country districts. Liquor was a medium of exchange, and when deferred pay was made in the liquid coin, Launceston was not the only town to be "painted red" on these pay-days.
The Reverend John Youl was the first resident Chaplain, in 1819. George Town was his headquarters, and the clergyman visited Launceston at stated periods. The building used was dubbed in correspondence "the chapel", in Cameron Street. On week-days it was the Police Office, and in front of it were the public stocks. This obviously had the advantage that the pastor could, if hell-fire appeared to the wicked as too shadowy and distant a punishment, at least point to the more immediate and practical degradation to be expected from lapses of behaviour and morals. Whether Mr Youl used the lesson is not recorded, but the unsuitability of the inside of the house was frequently the subject of his correspondence with headquarters. ' In those early days, when clocks were rare, a bell was a necessary adjunct, and the absence of such an item was got over by the resourceful parson hanging a barrel to a post and banging it with a mallet. Another method of ensuring a congregation was by parading the streets in clerical garb.
Lord Bathurst suggested the building of a church, and in April 1826 Governor Arthur reported that it was nearly ready for consecration-a mere twenty years after the founding of Launceston. Reading Arthur's voluminous and many-sided correspondence, one wonders how he found time to sleep. A typewriter would have been worth a king's ransom, but even steel pens were not yet invented and every word had to be written with a quill. Arthur's letters must have spelt death to quite a flock of geese. There are reams on penal subjects of course; annual reports; half-yearly reports; letters concerning his libellers, the control of the press, insubordinate officials, critical colonists, land grants, finance, site of the capital, agriculture, exploration, religion, punishments, health, law, education-was there any subject that did not come under the ken of this busy administrator? I fancy I can see Arthur examining with his observant eye the interior of this half-finished church, his clerk trailing at his heels with note-book in hand and a couple in reserve. The letter containing reference to the church is quite 3,000 words-a little newspaper. If Bathurst had many such correspondents, and doubtless he did, he must have banished rest from his life altogether. Bathurst had to approve even the details of equipment, and received from
his Colonial Governor meticulous recommendations as to font, "basons", tables, communion plate, scarlet coverings, "two linen napkins, two kneeling stools, two plain chairs". The number of surplices is detailed, the sizes of the Bibles and prayer-books, size of pews; a bell is suggested, a washing stand, looking-glass and a multiplicity of oddments-including an organist l Aghast at the probable value of the furnishings, Arthur winds up with a very practical solicitation for a "church keeper who should sleep in the church".

After the floods of April 1929, there was a suggestion to prevent further inundations of Invermay by cutting a canal from the North Esk to the Tamar. This had been suggested just over a century earlier by sixty-seven residents in a memorial to Sir Thomas Brisbane, though it was not floods they were thinking of. They probably visualized future Hunter schemes and harassed Marine Boards, worried ship captains and sinking dredges; for they mentioned a bar of sand or mud at the confluence of the rivers "which prevents vessels of greater burden than 150 tons coming within 400 yards of the Government wharf". In addition to forming a sort of anticipatory Marine Board, the signatories were also an embryo City Council and Public Works Department, for they advocated a North Esk bridge (recommended by Macquarie several years before) and a cataract aqueduct, the latter to save paying sixpence per load to Thomas Cookson, J.P., for water from somewhere near Hobler's.
The deservedly famous Cataract Gorge, which is formed by the South Esk River just before its junction with the Tamar was discovered by William Collins in the course of his surveying expedition from Port Phillip. In his favourable report, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, he said of Cataract Gorge : "The beauty of the scene is probably not surpassed in the world. The great water-fall, or cataract, is most likely one of the greatest sources of this beautiful river, every pan of which abounds with swans, duck and other kinds of wildfowl." For many years we paid a penny at a turnstile to view this magnificent scene, but instead of raising the fee to a level commensurate with the reward, the benevolent municipality has abolished the toll altogether.

Modern Launceston is a solid little city with some forty thousand people in it. They and their forbears have combined with nature to produce one of the most charming cities in the Commonwealth. Nearly all Tasmania's settlements are fortunate in possessing an eminence from which the visitor can see the whole picturesque scene, and Launceston is surrounded on three sides by hills, and behind them at some distance are lofty mountains, snow-clad in winter and always good to look at. If I lived in Launceston I'd choose Trevallyn for my suburb for the dwellings dig themselves into the hillside and get the first blink of sun as it peeps into their windows over the rims of the eastern mountain ranges.
It is a real Australian city in that pleasure grounds abound. If you know any game-two-up not excepted I'm told-you can play it in Launceston. If there are no champions among the bowlers, golfers or cricketers it is because they find themselves interrupted in their games to admire the view. I have myself tried to play bowls at the East Launceston green, but the exquisiteness of the surroundings gave a very disconcerting bias and I abandoned the attempt. There are more public parks strewn around than I shall ever visit, some of them in the heart of the city, others fringing the river banks, and yet others in the hill suburbs with an outlook over sweet countryside.
But Launceston, like all well-ordered cities, works as well as plays. There are factories making rayon cloth, woollens, racquets, machinery, furniture, jam, paints, leather goods and innumerable other oddments, large and small. If the Launceston Fifty Thousand League has not to change its name in a very few years-well, wanderers are fortunate if they know of a better spot in which to settle.

Chapter Five