EARLY AUSTRALIA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 115, 11 April 1930, Page 4

EARLY AUSTRALIA.

VALUABLE RECORDS FOUND. IN LONDON BOOK SHOPS. WELLINGTON, April 9. Two valuable records of early Australia are in the possession of Mr J. B. Merrett, a New Zealander who arrived in Wellington from England by tho lonic on the way to Melbourne. In a bookstall < in London Mr Merrett found a copy of Stockdale’s account of the arrival- of the first fleet, under Philip,- at Botany Bay. -‘ The volume was published two years after the first settlement of Sydney, and it is considered a rare treasure in Australia. The other discovery is an original letter-patent, appointing Dr Perry first Bishop of Melbourne. It consists of three sheets of parchment sealed by Queen Victoria, and dated two days before Bishop Perry’s consecration at Cambridge. The document was apparently dispatched from London by coach to be in time for the cerpmony- and Bishop Perry apparently took the papers back to London after his 20 years in Victoria, and they found their way to a book sale. The bookseller kept them in a cellar for years before their discovery by Mr Merrett. This relic will be presented to St. Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne.