He then entered the office of G. Young and Company of Leith, who were engaged in the Australian trade, and realising the possibilities of the new land, decided to emigrate to Australia.
In the 1840s, Westgarth witnessed a corroboree involving 700 Aboriginal people, in a place a little more than a mile to the north of the present general post office.
[4] When the new colony of Victoria was constituted in 1851, Westgarth headed the poll for City of Melbourne at the election for the Victorian Legislative Council on 13 September 1851.
[6] In 1842, he was one of the founders of the Melbourne Mechanics' Institute, afterwards the Athenaeum; he had done much writing, beginning in 1845 with a half-yearly Report Commercial Statistical and General on the District of Port Phillip.
This was followed in 1846 by a pamphlet, A Report on the Condition, Capabilities and Prospects of the Australian Aborigines, and in 1848 by Australia Felix, A Historical and Descriptive Account of the Settlement of Port Phillip.
When the Melbourne international exhibition was opened, he walked in the procession through the avenue of nations alongside Francis Henty, then the sole survivor of the brotherhood who founded Victoria.