I am wrong in saying that the Marine Lot Leases contained a clause for empowering the Lessees to reclaim between high and low-water mark, for there was a Land Office Notification to that effect. It appeared soon after the first Marine Leases, - in 1844, or soon afterwards. At all events, before the Land Office became the Surveyor General's Department in this matter.
I think that no land at all was reclaimed before Leases were issued. Sea-walls were made before the issue of Leases, but I think in general between the limits of the land that was measured off. I purchased a Lot at the first Land sale, and built a land-wall and a sea-wall too, within the dimensions given by the Land Officer. This was in 1841, before the Colony was regularly established, - before we got the Charter.
I do not think that the sea-face of the city had then been ascertained. I believe that the Lots had been measured towards the sea. But all that we were told was that, provided we left a space behind our buildings towards the land of fifty feet for a road, we might build in front towards the sea as much as we liked, and reclaim as far as we liked; only at the risk of its being resumed by Government in the event of its being wanted for public purposes. My attention had not been called, previously to the issue of the Leases, to any notifications, either by Captain Elliot, or by Mr. Johnstone, or afterwards, by Sir Henry Pottinger, as to the ...
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