and Govern in historical succession, all the Charters, Grants, Commissions, and Letters Patent by which the Crown in later times vested powers of colonial government in the hands of individuals. Sir Walter was empowered to "correct, punish, pardon, govern, and rule" his Legislation subjects "according to such statutes, lawes, and ordinances as ment, shall bee by him, the said Walter Raleigh, devised or established for the better government of the said people: So always as the said statutes, lawes, and ordinances may be, as neere as conveniently may be, agreeable to the forme of the lawes, statutes, government, or pollicie of England." This was, to all intents and purposes, the sum and substance of the powers conferred on Governor Phillip two centuries later. Develop ment of the colonial system. In the Grant of the province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, made in 1639, and in the Charter for the province of Pennsylvania granted to William Penn in 1681, the powers of government conferred by the Crown were defined with much more precision than they were in Raleigh's case. During the period which elapsed between Raleigh's voyage of discovery and the appearance of Gorges and Penn on the scene of colonisation, the government of the colonies had been developed into an official system; the grants and charters, drawn up when Coke and Bacon were Crown Law Officers, became established precedents for later cases; and their language, stripped of its antiquated peculiarities, may be found in many State documents of modern times. Thus there is no difficulty in tracing the pedigree, so to speak, of the Commission issued to Governor Phillip up to the American grants and charters of the sixteenth Governor of and seventeenth centuries. The identity of form and language is unmistakable. For instance, the powers given to Phillip to levy, arm, and muster forces for defence, to execute martial law, and to build fortifications, may be seen in the Grant to Sir Ferdinando Gorges in almost the same words. The historical interest of the subject will justify the quotation of a passage from it for the purpose of showing the resemblance between the two documents— especially as it will serve to illustrate the constitutional position occupied by Phillip :— Compare the commission to Sir Danvers Osborn, New York; And because in a Country soe farr distant and seated amongst soe many barbarous nations, the Incursions or Invasions, as well of the barbarous Old English. people as of Pirates and other enemies, maye be justly feared: Wee doe therefore give and grannte unto the said Sir Ferdinando Gorges full power and authorite that he shall or lawfullye maye muster, leavie, raise, arme, and employe all persons inhabiteing or resideing within the said province for the resisting or withstanding of such Enymies or Pyrates bothe atte Lande and atte See, and such enymies or Pyrates (if occasion shall require) to pursue and prosecute out of the lymits of the said province, and them (if it shall soe please God) to vanquishe, apprehende and take, and being taken, either, according to the Lawe of Armes, to kill or to keep and preserve them att his pleasure.* This power appears in Phillip's Commission, issued two hundred and fifty years afterwards, in much the same words :— And Wee do hereby give and grant unto you the said Arthur Phillip, by Modern yourself or by your Captains or Commanders by you to be authorised, full English. power and authority to levy, arm, muster, and command and employ all persons whatsoever residing within our said territory and its dependencies under your government, and as occasion shall serve, to march from one place to another, or to embark them, for the resisting and withstanding of all enemies, pirates and rebels, both at sea and land, and such enemies, pirates, and rebels, if there shall be occasion, to pursue and prosecute in or out of the limits of our said territory and its dependencies, and (if it shall so please God) them to vanquish, apprehend, and take, and being so taken, according to law to put to death or keep and preserve alive, at your discretion. Phillip was thus armed with the same military powers as those conferred on the proprietor of the province of Maine by a Charter which, as Doyle† expresses it, gave him almost kingly power over the territory. THE FIRST FLEET. LIEUTENANT KING'S MS. Journal of the Voyage to Botany Bay contains the following information with respect to the ships composing the First Fleet : The construction of a King's ship not being deemed proper for this service, the Berwick store-ship was pitched on by the Admiralty, and her name changed to the Sirius, so called from the bright star The Sirius, in ye southern constellation of the Great Dog. She had been pur chased on the stocks by Government in 1781, and was sent once to America as a store-ship during ye war, and once after ye peace to ye West Indies; since which time she had lay'n in ordinary at Deptford till named for this service, when she was taken into dock and, as the Yard people said, thoroughly overhauled; however, we not staunch. have frequently had reason to think otherwise in the course of our voyage. [Captain Hunter, in his Journal, p. 287, quotes the following passage from King's Journal at Norfolk Island :— Of the Sirius, which was never more to return to the Thames, he (King) tells the following anecdote :-"She was built in the river * Federal and State Constitutions. Part I, pp. 774-8. + History of America, p. 90. The Sirius. The Supply, for an east-country ship; and in loading her, she took fire and was burnt down to her wales. The Government wanting a roomy vessel to carry stores abroad, in 1781, purchased her bottom, which was rebuilt with such stuff as, during the war, could be found. She went two voyages as the Berwick store-ship; and, without any repairs, she was reported, when the present expedition was thought of, as fit for the voyage to New Holland, when she was named the Sirius. Experience, however, evinced that she was altogether adequate to the service for which she was destined; and carried her crew safe through one of the most tremendous gales, on a lee shore, that the oldest seamen remembered."] The Supply, armed tender, of 170 tons, 8 guns, and 50 men, commanded by Lieutenant H. L. Ball, was formerly a navy transport; her size is much too small for so long a voyage, which, added to her not being able to carry any quantity of provisions, and her sailed very sailing very ill, renders her a very improper vessel for this service. The transports taken up for ye service are as follows, as well as their complements of seamen, marines, and convicts, embarked on board them at the time of our leaving England :— ill. Transports and store ships. Contracts. Alexander, 452 tons, 30 seamen, 35 marines, 194 convicts; Lady Penrhyn, 333 tons, 30 seamen, 3 officers of marines, 101 female convicts; Charlotte, 335 tons, 30 seamen, 42 marines, 86 male and 20 female convicts; Scarboro', 430 tons, 30 seamen, 44 marines, 205 male convicts; Friendship, 274 tons, 25 seamen, 40 marines, 76 male and 21 female convicts; Prince of Wales, 350 tons, seamen, 29 marines, 2 male and 47 female convicts; Fishburn, victualler and agent's ship, of 378 tons, 22 men; Golden Grove, ditto, of 375 tons, 22 men; Borradale, ditto, of 275 tons, 22 men. The terms of the contracts with the owners of the above ships are ten shillings per ton per month till their arrival at Deptford, except the Lady Penrhyn, Charlotte, and Scarboro', which ships are no longer in the service when they are cleared of their cargoes at Botany Bay, and from that time their contract ceases with Government and they begin a new one with the East India Company, on whose account they go to China for a cargo of tea to Lieutenant carry to England. Lieutenant Shortland of the navy has the appointment of agent of transports, and is to return to England with the other three transports and ye three store-ships the instant the Governor has no further occasion for them. Shortland. Inside the transports. The transports are fitted up for the convicts the same as for carrying troops, except the security, which consists in very strong and thick bulk-heads, filled with nails and run across 'tween decks from side to side abaft the main-mast, with loopholes to fire between decks in case of irregularities. The hatches are wellsecured down by cross-bars, bolts, and locks, and are likewise railed round from deck to deck with oak stanchions. There is also a barricade of plank about three feet high abaft the main-mast, to prevent any connection between the marines and ship's company with the convicts. Centinels are placed at the different hatchways, and a guard always under arms on the quarter-deck of each transport, in order to prevent any improper behaviour of convicts, as well as to guard against any surprize. provisions. Each transport has on board a certain quantity of each kind of utensils proper for agriculture, as well as a distribution of other Stores and stores for the colony, so distributed that an accident happening to one ship would not have those disagreeable consequences, which must be the case if the whole of one species of stores was on board each ship. The victuallers are loaded with two years' provisions of all species for the marines, convicts, &c., for two years from the time of their landing in New South Wales. voyage. It was not till ye 11th of May that the Governor joined us, he having been detained in town until the Ministry had arranged and fixed the different orders settling a number of things incident to ye great voyage we are about to undertake. On ye 12th the ship's Ye great company was paid their two months' advance, and on the same day we were joined by his Majesty's ship Hyæna, Captain De Courcy, who was ordered to proceed with us as far as Captain Phillip might judge proper. BURKE ON TRANSPORTATION TO AFRICA. THE Parliamentary History for 1785 contains the following reports of speeches on this subject:— transport Mr. BURKE called the attention of the House to the melancholy situation under which those unfortunate people laboured who were sentenced with transportation. In a country which prided itself on the mild and indulgent principles of its laws, it should not be suffered that the situation of particular delinquents, instead of being meliorated by provisions dictated by clemency, should become infinitely more severe than could be inflicted in the utmost Convicts rigour and severity of the laws. The number of convicts under awaiting this description was at present estimated at not less than 100,000. ation. Every principle of justice and humanity required that punishments should not be inflicted beyond those prescribed and defined for particular kinds of delinquency. But that principle received additional force when it was considered that these extraordinary severities were exercised under the appearance of mercy; that is to say, they were remitted certain punishments by the mild spirit and principle of the English laws; and received in commutation others, infinitely more severe than the most rigid construction of the laws had in the worst of cases designed for them. There was 1785 ation to Gambia. in the mode of punishing by transportation no distinction between trivial crimes and those of greater enormity; all indiscriminately suffered the same miserable fate, however unequal their transgressions or different their circumstances. Besides these considerations, some regard should, in these times of difficulty and distress, be paid to frugality and economy. The business of transporting convicts, among other conveniences, was attended with a very considerable expense. Instances of profuse expenditure were sometimes justifiable, when they had humanity and clemency for their object; but could never derive any sanction from cruelty and humanity. He wished to know what was to be done with these unhappy wretches; and to what part of the world it was intended by the Minister they should be sent. He hoped Transport- it was not to Gambia, which, though represented as a wholesome place, was the capital seat of plague, pestilence, and famine. The gates of Hell were there open night and day to receive the victims of the law; but not those victims which either the letter or the. spirit of the law had doomed to a punishment attended with certain death. This demanded the attention of the Legislature. They should in their punishments remember that the consequences of transportation were not meant to be deprivation of life; and yet in Gambia it might truly be said, that there "all life dies, and all death lives." He would wish, as a preliminary to something being done on the subject, that the state of the prisons, so far as respected persons under sentence of transportation, were laid before the House; and this he thought would come best by several motions, which, if agreeable to the House, he should propose. Before he did this, he wished to know whether any contract had yet been entered into for sending these convicts to the coast of Africa. (He was answered, no.) State of the prisons. The Speaker remarked, that this motion came at somewhat too short a notice; whereupon Mr. Burke withdrew it for the present. This discussion, which took place on the 11th March, was followed by another on the 18th April in the same year :— Lord BEAUCHAMP begged leave to remind the House of an order that had been made at an early part of the present session, and of which he was sorry to find no notice whatever had been taken. Government The order to which he alluded was, that a report should be made policy. to the House relative to the manner in which Government intended to dispose of felons under sentence of transportation. He presumed the right hon. gentleman would inform him when he conceived a return might be expected to the ordinary question, as he intended to ground upon that return a motion which he would submit to the House on a future day. Mr. PITT admitted the importance of the subject, and stated as an excuse for the neglect of the order a very great hurry of |