centre of the colony's economic life. Nevertheless, poor equipment and unfamiliar soils and climate continued to hamper the expansion of farming from Farm Cove to Parramatta and Toongabbie. In February 1793, the Auburn area was established as the first free-agricultural settlement thanks to Governor Phillip's repeated applications to the British government for free settlers, and by the end of that decade Prospect, West Pennant Hills, Baulkham Hills and Greystanes were established. Eighteen months after the landing of the First Fleet, an exploring party led by Captain Watkin Tench set out to further findings made by Governor Phillip where, in 1789, they discovered the broad expanse of the Nepean River and Penrith. Windsor Road, one of the oldest roads in Sydney, was opened in 1794. In 1795, Matthew Flinders and George Bass explored up the Georges River for about 20 miles beyond what had been previously surveyed, and reported favourably to Governor John Hunter of the land on its banks. The earliest recorded white settlement in the Fairfield district is described in William Bradley's Journal where he noted an expedition from Rose Hill to Prospect Creek to determine whether Prospect Creek led to Botany Bay. The Battle of Parramatta, a major battle of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, occurred in March 1797 where resistance leader Pemulwuy led a group of Bidjigal warriors, estimated to be at least 100, in an attack on a government farm at Toongabbie, challenging the British Army to fight. On 4 March 1804 Irish convicts rose up in Rouse Hill as one, in what was to become known as the Castle Hill convict rebellion. Governor Lachlan Macquarie and Mrs Macquarie preferred the clean air of rural Parramatta to the unsanitary and crime-ridden streets of Sydney CBD and transformed Old Government House, Parramatta, into an elegant Palladian-style home in the English manner. Originally constructed under Governor Hunter in 1799 to reflect the economic importance of the Parramatta district, the building remains today Australia's oldest public building and was given World Heritage Listing by UNESCO in 2010. In 1803 a government stock farm was established in what was to become the Riverstone/Marsden Park area, on the basis of the abundant water supply and good grazing land there, and also in Smithfield, due to its good soil and dependable water supply. Windsor is the fourth-oldest place of British settlement on the Australian continent, where European settlers utilised the fertile river