Sealers had visited the area around 1828 and the mainly French whaling ships were fishing the local bays and island regions by the 1820s and up to the 1840s. In 1836 Governor Sir John Hindmarsh, the first Governor of South Australia, gave instructions to Colonel William Light of finding a capital for the 'New British Province of South Australia'. He'd been in the colony for four months and in all that time he'd been trying to find a right place for a harbour, and a right place for a settlement.