Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/160

 132 THE DISI^OSAL GF 1700 Th ftkt and the lean, Crown Town Bites. Ofanrcfa and school lands. Isolated grants. It was frtrther provided in the Additional Instructions that the land should be so parcelled out that each grantee would have a fair proportion of good and inferior land^ and of whatever water-frontage might be available. The breadth of the allotments was to be one-third of the length, and the length was not to ^^ extend along the banks of any river, but into the mainland, that thereby the said grantees may have each a convenient share of what accommodation the said harbour or river may afford for navigation or other- wise.^^ It was also directed that, between the allotments of one hundred acres or fifty acres, spaces '^ ten acres in breadth and thirty acres in length '^* should be reserved for* the Crown, but open to be leased at the discretion of the Governor for any term not exceeding fourteen years. The Governor was further required to lay out ^'townships'' and provide for the settlement of families in towns, '^ with town and pasture lots convenient to each tenement.'' The towns were to be laid out upon or near some navigable river or the sea-coast, and land was to be reserved in the township for military and naval purposes, ''and more particularly for the building a town-hall and such other public edifices " as might be deemed necessary. Phillip was also directed '' that a particular spot, in or as near each town as possible, be set apart for the building of a church, and four hundred acres adjacent thereto allotted for the maintenance of a minister, and two hundred for a schoolmaster." The Governor, it may be supposed, was somewhat puzzled by the direction to lay out the settlement like a chess-board, putting the settlers on one set of squares, and reserving the others for the Crown. If the matter had been left in each containing one acre, and a depth of thirtj squares, each containing one acre — t.^., three hundred acres. The expression was not repeated in Hunter's Instructions ; he was merely directed to reserye not less than fi?e hundred acres between all grants of one thousand acres.
 * ' towns '' in such situations as he judged proper, and to
 * "By this was probably meant an area haying a frontage of ten tqnares,