in Tartaria, the charitable Lady Callamata supplied my necessities. In the utmost of many extremities, that blessed Pokahontas, the great King's daughter of Virginia, oft saved my life. When I escaped the

cruelty of pirates and most furious storms, a long time alone in a small boat at sea, and driven ashore in France, the good lady Madam Chanoyes bountifully assisted me.

Captain Phillip had not any such conquests as these to boast of; we do not know that he captivated a single princess among the sable tribes he met with in such numbers on these shores, and so far the tale he has to tell derives no charm from romance. No blessed Pokahontas figures in his story; but what it wants in point of sentiment is more than atoned for by its realistic pictures of the life around him. The American chronicler leaves his reader in doubt as to when he is relating plain facts and when he is merely filling up gaps with imaginary adventures. Phillip never leaves us in doubt as to any matter he deals with; although his language has neither point nor polish, it is minutely circumstantial and therefore free from suspicion-free, too, from the stilted phraseology of official correspondence.

Similar criticism might be applied to those of his contemporaries,-Collins, Hunter, King, Tench, and White-who wrote their journals from day to day during the first years of the settlement. The sketches left by these men, each of whom wrote from a different point of view, combine to make up a perfectly faithful picture of the great event in which they were concerned -a picture as accurate in every line as a photograph; for had the sketchers been using sunlight instead of ink for the scenes they described, their work could not have been more true to nature than it is. Where in the history of colonisation shall we look for equally faithful work on the part of chroniclers? In the records left by Phillip and his companions, the natural evolution of that complex organism which we call society may be studied as minutely as the naturalist examines the movements of an insect under a microscope. The rudimentary limbs and organs may be seen slowly developing themselves out of the embryo; struggling into existence, it is true, under the most * Doyle, The English in America, pp. 554-8.

unfavourable conditions, and frequently threatened with death. from inanition; but still showing a native vigour which enabled them to survive the perils that surrounded them, and attain their full development in later years.

For the purpose of constitutional study in particular, the importance of such records as these cannot be overestimated. Every one who has sought to master the constitutional history of England knows. how difficult it is to get any clear understanding of the origin of those institutions, legal and political, which make up what is called the English Constitution. It was not until the scholars of the present day made their laborious investigations among the records of the Saxon and the Norman period that the student was enabled to trace those institutions back through successive ages to their earliest forms; to see, for instance, the right of trial by jury, of personal liberty, of parliamentary government, of free speech, and every other right valued by Englishmen, growing out of their rude surroundings as easily as he can follow the gradual developments of vertebrate life in the collections of a museum. Great as the difference is between a colony and its parent State, there is no absurdity in comparing the constitutional growth of one with that of the other. The lapse of a hundred years has given this country a history, and the peculiar circumstances under which it has grown to its present dimensions lend an unusual interest to the examination of its successive stages-from the small military camp under Governor Phillip, to the great group of colonies in the present day.*

The final section of this volume contains the Bibliography of Terra Australis, New Holland, and New South Wales to the year 1820, in which many historical references of some interest will be found, as well as a catalogue of all the various publications on the subject. "Knowledge," said Dr. Johnson, "is of two kinds.

* In the course of his letter to Lord Knutsford, of the 28th February, 1889— in which he discussed the relations between the Home Government and these colonics, with particular reference to the Commission and Instructions issued to their Governors,-Chief Justice Higinbotham, of Victoria, remarked: "I have not seen a copy of an Australian Governor's Commission and Instructions of an earlier date than 1850." It is a curious fact that although Governor Phillip's Commission and Instructions form the foundation of our political system, they have never been published until the present day.

We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we inquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and the backs of books in libraries." The force of this remark will be appreciated by every one who has paid any attention to the history of this country. To know what books have treated of it, from the earliest times to the present day, is an essential preliminary to the study; but hitherto the bibliography of the subject has been left almost untouched. The present attempt being the first of the kind that has been made here, the result cannot pretend to be complete; like the rest of the work, it has had to contend with very adverse conditions as regards time and materials. Before such a catalogue can be made, it would be necessary to search the public libraries of Holland, France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as those of England; because there can be no doubt that many publications relating to this part of the world-from the first indications of its existence down to recent periods-have appeared from time to time in those countries, of which at present we know nothing.

It is much to be wished that some effort should be made for the purpose of obtaining as complete a collection of those publications as can now be made; and also that the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese archives should be carefully searched for the purpose of procuring authentic copies of all State papers relating to this country. It is not until these materials shall have been obtained that we can hope to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions with respect to the only portion of our history that still remains buried in obscurity. By a remarkable fatality, almost every writer who has had to deal with the past ages of Australia has felt impelled to begin with an account of the early voyages of discovery-on much the same principle that historians of old used to commence with the creation of the world. To deal with the subject of discovery, in the darkness which still surrounds it, is hardly a less difficult task than that of the learned Burgomaster Witsen, when he undertook to write on the Migrations of Mankind. We have only

to recall the various theories with respect to the question of priority among the discoverers in order to see the existing state of confusion. There are at least five such theories still in existence: one sets up the Malays and the Chinese as the first discoverers; another the French; a third, the Portuguese; a fourth, the Spaniards; and a fifth, the Dutch. Each of these theories is supported by a great deal of argument and some evidence; but nothing seems to come of either but doubt and despair. To show how unsettled the question still remains, it is enough to mention that Major, in 1859, considered it highly probable that the Portuguese discovered the country between 1511 and 1529, and almost certain that they discovered it before 1542; but having found a mappemonde in the British Museum two years afterwards, he came to the conclusion that the country was positively discovered by the Portuguese in 1601-the Dutch being thus summarily dispossessed of an honour they had enjoyed for more than two centuries. Further researches enabled the lucky discoverer of the map to satisfy himself that it was 66 abominable imposture," and the laurel crown was thereupon handed back to the Dutch.* Unfortunately, however, the detection of the imposture escaped the notice of many who had read the account of the map-among them being the author of a valuable work on the History of Australian Exploration, in whose pages it appears as unquestioned evidence of "a Portuguese discovery of Australia immediately preceding the Dutch one."+ However interesting the point of priority may be, it is a matter of little importance compared with a reasonably accurate knowledge of the whole subject-for which we must wait until it is treated, like any other branch of inquiry, according to the critical methods of the present day.

an

* Early Voyages to Terra Australis, p. lxiv; Archæologia, vol. xxxviii, p. 438; Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 296 n.

† Favene, History of Australian Exploration (Sydney, 1888), p. 21.