Land grant signed by Phillip as governor of New South Wales and witnessed by an important circle of First Fleeters: George Johnston, reputedly the first man ashore at Port Jackson in 1788; John Palmer, the purser on Phillip's flagship the Sirius; John White, the colony's surgeon; and David Collins, who inscribes the document as secretary to the governor.

Land grant signed by Phillip as governor of New South Wales and witnessed by an important circle of First Fleeters: George Johnston, reputedly the first man ashore at Port Jackson in 1788; John Palmer, the purser on Phillip's flagship the Sirius; John White, the colony's surgeon; and David Collins, who inscribes the document as secretary to the governor.

Phillip arrived in Port Jackson with instructions from George III to grant every emancipated convict thirty acres of land, or fifty acres should they be married. It was not until 1791 that the first request was received; by the time Phillip's governorship came to an end, he had made only ninety-five grants. Very few of the original ninety-five manuscript grants have survived intact, and this grant of thirty acres to John Bazely at Eastern Farms (now Ryde) is of considerable rarity. It is dated the same day as one made to the colony's first farmer James Ruse (which formalised Ruse's farm near Parramatta that had actually been set up in late 1789).

The grantee here was the First-Fleeter and former mariner John Bazely, who had been tried at Exeter and transported on the Charlotte for seven years for stealing a coat and a pair of breeches. At Port Jackson he served as an assistant to the provost marshal in 1788. He was granted this land — to be known as Bazeley's Farm — in February, and by October he had one and a quarter acres of maize planted and a further acre cleared.

Within two years, however, he prepared to leave the colony, and on 20 April 1794 he transferred his land holding to James Squires "in consideration of twenty pounds sterling and a free passage to any port from Port Jackson to England". Bazeley sailed on the Indispensable for Bengal on 9 July 1794. The transfer of title is carefully executed on the reverse by convict Charles Peat and signed by three other convicts, including Henry Kable, an entrepreneurial first-fleeter with dealings in shipping and the rum trade, and John Bazely, dated 20 April, 1794. Squires was the first in the colony to cultivate the hop plant and subsequently built the first brewery in New South Wales.

In Australia, the ownership of land has always had a magic ability to fuel both fortune and financial ruin. This simple document represents the beginning of the colony's frantic rush towards land ownership that saw over 200,000 acres transferred to individuals within the first two decades.