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Diary of ten years eventful life of an early settler in Western Australia is the diary of George Fletcher Moore, one of the few records of early colonial Western Australia written from the perspective of an ordinary colonist. Tom Stannage describes the diary as "an immensely valuable social document" and "the best published guide we have to life in Swan River colony between 1830 and 1840." Here it is published with A descriptive vocabulary of the language of the aborigines. In the year 1828, the British Government being anxious, for political reasons, to establish a colony on the West side of Australia, issued public notices, offering large tracts of land, on certain conditions, to any who would proceed to, and settle on, that district before the end of the year 1830. Attracted by the hope of obtaining possession of a good estate, and feeling that the prospect of success at the Irish Bar was but remote and uncertain, I applied to the Government on the subject of some official appointment, if I should go to the Colony as an emigrant. The answer was to the effect, that any appointment made here now might clash with the proceedings of Governor Stirling; but if I chose to go out at my own risk and expense, they would give me a favourable letter of introduction to the Governor. On this encouragement, I made up my mind to go at once.
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Featured April 2010