Fine original document signed by Grose as acting governor, witnessed by John White, Edward Laing, and David Collins, and with the signatures of John Macarthur and his wife Elizabeth.

Fine original document signed by Grose as acting governor, witnessed by John White, Edward Laing, and David Collins, and with the signatures of John Macarthur and his wife Elizabeth.

This grant of land was made to Zadoc Petit, who arrived in the colony with the Second Fleet. He was a private in the New South Wales Corps, of which Grose had been commanding officer. The twenty-five acre parcel of land in the Field of Mars (present-day Ryde) was to be known as Petit Farm. Field of Mars was an area reserved for free settlers; two years earlier eight Royal Marines were the first to take up grants in the area. At this time, Grose was still following a practice begun by Phillip of the segregation into areas of grants to ex-convicts, settlers and free settlers. Although not official policy, it was believed that the needs of each group would benefit from this.

Francis Grose (1758?-1814) had served in the American War of Independence as a young man, before becoming commandant of the New South Wales Corps and eventually lieutenant-governor of New South Wales. On the departure of Phillip in December 1792, Grose was left in control of the fledgling settlement.

This grant is completed by the signatures of many important men including the surgeon-general John White, Edward Laing, surgeon-mate to the New South Wales Corps and David Collins, judge-advocate and responsible for the colony's legal establishment.

The verso of this document shows how land-dealing dates from the beginnings of the colony. Zadoc Petit, signing with a cross, sells his land for fifty pounds to Thomas Higgins, giving Petit a good profit on his earlier arrangement with Grose of "one shilling per year commencing after five years"; he would only have had to pay rent for one year. The subsequent transfer of title is entirely executed in the holograph of John Macarthur, witnessed by his signature and that of Elizabeth Macarthur, Australia's "first and greatest lady", and is dated at Parramatta, 5 June 1800.