Though it did not solve the problem arising from the lack of coins, but in an attempt to put some order into the economy, in 1800, Governor Philip Gidley King set the value of a variety of foreign coins circulating in New South Wales. One very important British oversight was the provision of adequate coinage for the new colony and, because of the shortage of any sort of money, the real means of exchange during the first 25 years of settlement was rum. The colony of New South Wales barely survived its first years and was largely neglected for much of the following quarter-century while the British government was preoccupied until 1815 with the Napoleonic Wars. It was founded more to forestall a possible French claim to that part of Australia than for any immediate economic benefit to the Sydney settlement. Hobart in what was then called Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania) was established in 1804 as a penal settlement. When Governor Phillip left the colony in December 1792, the European population was 4,221, of whom 3,099 were convicts. Sealing and whaling contributed more to the colonial economy than land produce until the 1830s. Seal skins, Whale oil and baleen (whalebone) were valuable commodities and provided Australia with its first major export industries. Whaling in Australia commenced in 1791, when Captain Thomas Melvill, commanding the Britannia, one of 11 ships of the Third Fleet, and Captain Eber Bunker of the William and Ann, after landing their passengers and cargo then went whaling and sealing in Australasian waters. Land grants were often subject to conditions, such as a quit rent (one shilling per 50 acres (200,000 m2) to be paid after five years) and a requirement for the grantee to reside on and cultivate the land. Governors of New South Wales had authority to make land grants to free settlers, emancipists (former convicts) and non-commissioned officers. More settlers came with the arrival of the Second Fleet in 1789, and the Third Fleet in 1791, with other convict transports in the years that followed. The Indigenous population was not counted or estimated, nor reported at that point. According to the first census of 1788, as reported by Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, the Home Secretary, the white population in the colony was 1,030, of which 753 were convicts and their children the colony also had 7 horses, 2903 sheep, 749 swine, 6 rabbits, and 754 cattle. The United Kingdom claimed all of eastern Australian as its territory on the basis of terra nullius, though the actual landing and consequent settlement was initially confined to the Port Jackson area.

The European settlement of Australia began on 26 January 1788 at Port Jackson (modern Sydney, New South Wales), when the First Fleet arrived with more than 1,000 convicts, marines and a few free settlers, plus a vast quantity of stores to establish a penal colony in New South Wales.

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