#6. The Henty Brothers.#--But even earlier than this period a quiet settlement had been made in the western parts of Victoria. There, as early as 1828, sealers had dwelt at Portland Bay, had built their little cottages and formed their little gardens. But they were unauthorised, and could only be regarded by the British Government as intruders, having no legal right to the land they occupied. In 1834, however, there came settlers of another class--Edward, Stephen, and Frank Henty. Their father--a man of some wealth--had in 1828 emigrated with all his family to Western Australia, carrying with him large quantities of fine stock. But the settlement at Swan River proving a failure, he had removed to Tasmania, where his six sons all settled. Very soon they found the pastoral lands of Tasmania too limited, and as Edward Henty had in one of his coasting voyages seen the sealers at Portland Bay and noticed how numerous the whales were in that bay, and how fine the grassy lands that lay within, he chartered a vessel, the _Thistle_, and crossed in her to settle at Portland Bay with servants, sheep, cattle, and horses. [Illustration: EDWARD HENTY.] The land was all that had been anticipated, and soon Frank, and then Stephen, arrived, with more stock and more men to tend them. Houses and stores were put up, and fields were ploughed. Ere long other settlers followed, and in the course of five or six years all the district lying inland from Portland Bay was well settled and covered with sheep, while at Portland Bay itself so many whales were caught that there were not tanks enough to hold the oil, and much of it was wasted. The English Government after some delay agreed to sell land to the settlers, and before 1840 a thriving little town stood on the shores of Portland Bay. [Illustration: JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER.]