John Oxley's Letter on Disputed Land Claim, 1826

John Oxley [1784 - 1828], Manuscript copy letter from Sydney, in Oxley's hand, dated 19th Jan'y 1826, regarding a disputed claim over 'land situated at Bylong, or Pylong, near the Goulburn River.' The letter is signed off by Oxley in his capacity as Surveyor-General., Oxley's appointment as Surveyor-General was at the time of Lachlan Macquarie's Governorship. Macquarie encouraged exploration ? he had sent George Evans to confirm the exploratory work of Wentworth, Blaxland and Lawson over the Blue Mountains, instigated the building of the road over the Blue Mountains in 1814-1815, and had travelled to Bathurst immediately William Cox had completed it. From there he had sent George Evans on an expedition up the Lachlan River in May 1815. Macquarie wanted the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers explored thoroughly., Opening up of the new lands over the mountains had created enthusiasm for further discoveries about them and the Macquarie River. Mysteriously, the Macquarie, and the Lachlan, discovered by Evans in 1815, flowed westwards to the interior of the country and not easterly towards the coastline. Successively, in 1817 and 1818 Macquarie appointed John Oxley in charge of two expeditions to investigate these rivers., On the 1817 Lachlan expedition, Oxley was to come across marshy country and concluded this inland area was uninhabitable. If he had pressed on for two more days he would have reached the Murrumbidgee River. Oxley reported that, in his opinion, the Lachlan flowed into an extensive series of swamps, 'which were, perhaps, the margin of a great inland sea.' Similarly, the Macquarie expedition the following year came to a halt on that river at the Macquarie Marshes in a good season for the marshes as the Macquarie was in flood replenishing these wetlands. Oxley tried to proceed through them but couldn't do so. He returned to the encampment of the rest of his party now convinced that these westward flowing rivers terminated in an inland sea, and he had been on the swampy edge of it. Through Oxley, the theory of the Australian inland sea was fed and perpetuated.