The Port Phillip Association (originally the Geelong and Dutigalla Association) was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association from Wurundjeri elders after he had obtained their marks to a document, which came to be known as Batman's Treaty. The leading members of the association were John Batman, a farmer, Joseph Gellibrand, a lawyer and former Attorney-General, Charles Swanston, banker and member of the Legislative Council, John Helder Wedge, surveyor and farmer, Henry Arthur, nephew of Lieutenant Governor George Arthur of Van Diemen’s Land, and various others including William Sams, Under Sheriff and Public Notary for Launceston, Anthony Cottrell, Superintendent of Roads and Bridges, John Collicott, Postmaster General, James Simpson, Commissioner of the Land Board and police magistrate, John Sinclair, Superintendent of Convicts, Michael Connolly, Thomas Bannister, George Mercer, and John and William Robertson. Objective Some fifteen of the leading colonists of Tasmania (at the time called Van Diemen's Land), plus the Edinburgh-based Mercer, formed a company in early 1835 with a view to purchasing a large tract of land from the Aboriginal peoples who lived on the south coast of Australia, and to there establish a settlement. Gellibrand prepared deeds for the transfer of an interest in the land and which provided for the payment of an annual tribute. John Batman took copies of the deed with him when he went into Port Phillip in May 1835, accompanied by some servants and Aboriginals from New South Wales. Batman's treaty Batman sailed from Launceston in the schooner Rebecca on 10 May 1835 and landed at Indented Head on the Bellarine Peninsula in Port Phillip Bay on 29 May 1835. Between 29 May and 10 June, Batman claimed to have explored an area, including; the Bellarine Peninsula, the eastern part of the Surf Coast, the coastal areas of Geelong to Port Melbourne, northeast from Geelong to either 'Mount Iramoo' near Sunbury or Mount Koroit north east of Melton, and easterly (his journal suggests he made it only to either Merri Creek or Edgars Creek near Fawkner, or perhaps the Darebin River or Plenty River, but the subsequent maps by Wedge suggest a far greater easterly point), and southwest to Melbourne and Port Melbourne. Batman's journal lists 6 June as the day he encountered Kulin Nations peoples and their leaders. Batman claimed a ceremony