I concur with you in deeming this important event to be worthy of permanent record in the annals of South Australia; and I shall cause a commemorative medal to be placed conspicuously among the public archives.
I shall not fail to seek Her Majesty’s gracious permission to accept from the Legislative Council the honour of one of the Medals for myself, as a memorial of the happy fortune by which I have been privileged to be a co-operator with the Council in opening up the steam navigation of the river Murray, and thereby establishing a bond of commercial and social union between three prosperous Colonies of Australia.
H. E. F. YOUNG.
Government House, October 24, 1853.
PROCLAMATION
By His Excellency Sir Henry Edward Fox Young, Knight, Lieutenant-Governor of Her Majesty’s Province of South Australia, and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c. &c.
(L S)
H. E. F. Young.
Whereas, in order to provide for the interests of future settlers, and the probable course of future settlement along the banks of the now-ascertained navigable waters of the River Murray, it is expedient, that as respects the River Murray, and its Lakes Alexandrina or Victoria and Lake Albert, in South Australia, there should be adopted and applied the principles recognised and acted upon in the Royal Order in Council of the 9th March, 1847, by which it was declared that in New South Wales and Victoria there shall not be included in leases for pastoral purposes any lands lying and being within the distance of three miles from the sea coast, and within the distance of two miles from either of the opposite banks of certain rivers then named in the above-mentioned Royal Order: And whereas, for these and other purposes, it is expedient that the portion of the Province of South Australia hereinafter described should be created a Hundred: Now, therefore, I, the Lieutenant-Governor, in the name and on the behalf of Her Most Gracious Majesty, by virtue of the powers and authorities in me vested, do, by this my Proclamation, declare and appoint that the several parts of the said Province of South Australia, hereinafter more particularly described, and which are in part bounded by the shores of Lake Alexandrina or Victoria and Lake Albert, and by the banks of the River Murray, shall, from and after the first day of July next ensuing the date of this Proclamation, be, and I do by this my Proclamation constitute the same a Hundred of the same Province by the name of the “Hundred of the Murray:” And I do by this my Proclamation further proclaim and declare that—All those lands which lie within the distance of two miles from either of the two opposite banks of the River Murray, within the Province of South Australia, together with all those lands which lie within the distance of two miles from the north shore of Lake Alexandrina, between Salt Creek Trigonometrical Station and the Murray, and two miles from the east shores of Lakes Alexandrina and Albert, and also all the land in the County of Russell lying west of Lake Albert, as the same are respectively delineated in the public maps deposited in the office of the Surveyor-General of the Province, shall be within and shall constitute the said Hundred.