1786 Official reticence. necessity, "no penitentiary houses having been built, though an Act had passed for their erection." Judging from the extremely curt allusion to the matter in the King's speech, it would appear that the Government did not think it expedient to invite discussion with respect to their colonising project. No debate seems to have taken place at any stage of the business, even the bill "to enable his Majesty to establish a Criminal Judicature on the eastern coast of New South Wales and the parts adjacent " having passed without comment.* The measure seems to have been treated as if it contained nothing beyond a provision for the disposal of felons. Possibly the Government may have Objections been influenced by the objections urged in different quarters ment policy. to any proposal for the establishment of a new colony. They to Govern Sources of the move ment. had to encounter objections from the East India Company to any interference with their commercial monopoly; objections from philosophers who considered colonies a source of weakness to the mother country; objections from critics who looked upon the eastern coast of New Holland as, "perhaps, the most barren, least inhabited, and worst cultivated country in the Southern Hemisphere "+; and objections from humanitarians who argued that, if the Government "had chosen to embrace the single purpose of forming a settlement at Botany Bay, they would be justly censurable in inviting the industrious and reputable artisan to exchange his own happy soil for the possession of territory, however extensive, in a part of the world as yet so little known."‡ But notwithstanding the indifference with which the proposed expedition appears to have been received in political circles, a glance at contemporary history is enough to show that there were other objects in view in the minds of English statesmen besides the relief of overcrowded gaols. In the first place, the loss of the American colonies naturally There is no reference to the bill in the Parliamentary History for 1787. + Post, p. 467. The History of New Holland, 1787, preface, p. v. provoked a desire to found other colonies, which in course of time might compensate England for them; and in the second place, there was the clear political necessity of occupying the territory discovered by Captain Cook, in order to prevent its occupation by the French. 1786 events. The sequence of events during the twenty-five years which preceded the expedition under Governor Phillip is Historical too strikingly suggestive to be overlooked. We have only to review the great historical occurrences of that time in order to see the connection between them. Paris, 1763. 1. The Peace of Paris in 1763 put an end to the long Peace of struggle between France and England for the possession of Canada and India. The French having lost both, it was inevitable that they should seek to retrieve the disaster by fresh discoveries in other parts of the world. 2. Accordingly, an expedition of discovery in the South De BougainSea was despatched under the command of Louis de Bou- ville, 1766, gainville, Colonel of Foot and Commodore, in 1766. He sailed round the world-the first achievement of the kind in the history of French navigation-and discovered various islands in the Pacific Ocean. Cook, 1768. 3. The English expedition under Captain Cook, "for Captain making discoveries in the southern hemisphere," followed in 1768, and the publication of his voyages in 1773 directed attention to one of the greatest fields for colonisation that had yet been made known. 1772. 4. The French Government despatched another expedition Marion, in 1772, under Captain Marion Du Fresne, to make discoveries in the Southern Ocean. He touched at Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, but added little or nothing to their geography. 5. A second expedition under Captain Cook was de- Captain spatched in 1772 for the purpose of making discoveries in Cook, 1772. the unexplored part of the southern hemisphere. New Caledonia and Norfolk Island were discovered on this voyage. 1786 Captain Cook, 1776. Peace of Versailles, 1783. La Pérouse, 1785. Captain 6. A third expedition under the same commander was sent out to the Pacific Ocean in 1776, to make discoveries in the northern hemisphere. 7. By the Peace of Versailles in 1783, England recognised the independence of the American colonies, which were thus finally lost to her. 8. The French Government sent out a third expedition in 1785, under the command of La Pérouse, for the purpose of making discoveries and also examining portions of New Holland and New Zealand. 9. In 1786 Botany Bay was fixed upon as the site of the intended settlement on the coast of New South Wales, and in May, 1787, the fleet sailed under the command of Governor Phillip, whose last lines from England showed how thoroughly he appreciated the national importance of the work in which he was engaged. These events lead to the conclusion that, whether Lord Sydney and his colleagues confined their attention to the state of the gaols or not, there was a motive-power of a very different character at work, irresistibly impelling them to undertake the colonisation of New South Wales.* * Lucas, Introduction to a Historical Geography of the British Colonies, p. 103. PHILLIP'S COMMISSION. Commission. precedents. If there were any serious doubt as to the real nature of the 1787 expedition on which Phillip was despatched, it might be Scope of settled by reference to the terms of his Commission, illustrated as it is by the official Instructions which accompanied it. There is certainly nothing in the former that could lead the reader to suppose that the sole object of the expedition was the establishment of a penal settlement; nor could a stranger to our history even gather from it that. such a settlement was contemplated. The Commission conferred much the same powers on Phillip as those with which the Governors sent out to the colonies and plan- Plantation tations in North America and the West Indies used to be invested in days when "assemblies of freeholders" were unknown. All these Commissions seem to have been framed more or less on the same lines, and according to precedents established in the early days of the colonial system; the points of difference observable among them being attributable to difference in the positions occupied by the various Governors-some being appointed to Crown Crown colonies, others to colonies possessing legislative institu tions. Phillip was sent out as the Governor of a Crown colony, and consequently there was practically no limita tion of his powers.† He was appointed "Captain-General Post, pp. 474, 481, 487. +A good illustration of the manner in which Governors of the old school used to interpret their Commissions will be found in Edwards, History of the West Indies, vol. ii, page 395:-"Mr. Stokes, the late Chief Justice of Georgia, relates that a Governor of a province in North America (at that time a British colony) ordered the Provost-Marshal to hang up a convict some days before the time appointed by his sentence and a rule of Court colonies. 1787 The territory defined. Colonisation intended. Trade and navigation laws. and Governor-in-Chief in and over our territory called New South Wales, extending from the northern Cape or extremity of the coast called Cape York to the southern extremity or South Cape,* and of all the country inland westward as far as the 135th degree of east longtitude, including all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean; and of all towns, garrisons, castles, forts, and all other fortifications or other military works which may be hereafter erected upon the said territory or any of the said islands.” The jurisdiction thus created was evidently designed to answer a higher purpose than that of establishing a place for the reception of convicts. Any of the adjacent islands in the Pacific Ocean-Norfolk Island or New Caledonia, for instance-might have been sufficient for that purpose, and might probably have been even better adapted to it than the mainland; but the territory placed under Phillip's administration comprised the best half of New Holland, and taking possession of it was in fact taking possession of the whole. That the intention of the British Government in occupying New South Wales was to colonise it is further shown in the direction-" that you take the oath required to be taken by Governors in the plantations, to do their utmost that the several laws relating to trade and the plantations be duly observed." The laws referred to were the celebrated Trade and Navigation Laws, passed for the for his execution. He meant well,' says Stokes, but being a military man, conceived that as he had power to reprieve after sentence, he had power to execute also when he pleased, and the criminal was actually hanged as the Governor ordered, nor could his Excellency be persuaded that, by this very act, he was himself committing felony.' And of another military Governor, it is said that he took it into his head to suspend a gentleman from his seat in the Council, for no other reason than marrying his daughter without his consent.'" *By the South Cape was then meant the southern extremity of Van Diemen's Land, discovered and named by Tasman. "A point much like the Ram Head, off Plymouth, which I take to be the same that Tasman calls South Cape, bore north four leagues off us."-Captain Furneaux's Narrative, 9 March, 1773. Van Diemen's Land was supposed, until the discovery of Bass's Straits, to form part of New Holland. "Van Diemen's Land has been twice visited before. I need hardly say that it is the southern point of New Holland."-Cook's Third Voyage, vol. i, p. 103, January, 1777. |