Port Phillip Bay on 29 May 1835, landing at Indented Head. Over the next week, he explored the area around the Bay, first at Corio Bay, near the present site of Geelong, and later moving up the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne. Foundation of town On 6 June 1835, Batman, as part of a Tasmanian business syndicate known as the Port Phillip Association, signed a treaty with eight Wurundjeri elders in which he purported to buy of land around Melbourne and another around Geelong on Corio Bay to the south-west. On 8 June he wrote in his journal: "So the boat went up the large river... and... I am glad to state about six miles up found the River all good water and very deep. This will be the place for a village." The last sentence later became famous as the "founding charter" of Melbourne. Batman returned to Launceston in Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe Fawkner, by now a businessman in Launceston, had the same idea. Fawkner bought a ship, the schooner Enterprize, which sailed on 4 August, with a party of intending settlers. When Batman's party reached the Yarra on 2 September, they were dismayed and angry to find Fawkner's people already in possession. The two groups decided that there was plenty of land for everybody, and when Fawkner arrived on 16 October with another party of settlers, they agreed to parcel out land and not dispute who was there first. Both Batman and Fawkner settled in the new town. Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by the New South Wales government (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 1835), but provided for compensation to the Association. Although this meant the settlers were now trespassing on Crown land, the government reluctantly accepted the settlers' fait accompli and allowed the town to remain. In September 1836, Governor Bourke established the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, though the borders had still not been determined, with the settlement as its administrative centre. (Bourke was authorized by London to establish a settlement in