THE HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. CHAPTER I. DISCOVERY AND EARLY HISTORY. SECTION I. GOVERNMENT OF CAPTAIN PHILLIP. WHILE the commercial nations of Europe were pushing discoveries, and making territorial acquisitions in the Eastern and Western hemispheres— the Old and the New World; while England had been colonizing the lands of America, and conquering the kingdoms of India, the wide tracts of the South Pacific and South Indian Oceans embosomed in unknown solitude a number of vast and populous islands, which, since their discovery, VOL. I. B 2 POLYNESIAN ISLANDS. have been named and classed as a fifth grand division of the globe under the title of Polynesia. The most prominent in geographical importance of the Polynesian islands are Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea; but while the latter with its group of sister islands, forming a connecting link between Asia and Australia, has been hardly explored, the former with their dependencies have become British colonies, second only in wealth and value to the Canadas, and the West Indian Islands. The chief, as it is the oldest colony planted by Great Britain on the continental island of Australia, is New South Wales; and it is the history and general description of this settlement that we now propose to compile for the information of the English reader, and for the perusal of our native youth. After a course of fifty years, as a penal colony, New South Wales is now ranked in the list of the free dependencies of the Crown, and besides the highly curious and interesting field of research and narrative which its early history affords, it has now arrived at a point in its career which indicates the present as the fittest time for the composition of a work embracing its past history, its actual position, and its future prospects. The institution we mean is that of a local legislature, combining the principles of elective representation with the representation of the Crown interests, PLAN OF THE WORK. 3 and the establishment of this fixes a date up to which the previous progress of the colony forms of itself an era, or period of history: it is through the details of that period, that we now purpose to carry the reader. The plan upon which the following work is composed, is of a descriptive as well as statistical nature, combining the mode and style pursued by Lang and Martin. It has always appeared to us that the former is too generally descriptive, the latter too sterile in his materials for general interest. Lang is exceedingly meagre in his statistical details, and weak in his financial views; Martin is replete with figures, but such as are often incorrect and sometimes contradictory. In the following papers, the early history which is connected, we consider, with the first distinctive period that we have described, is made to contain a narrative of the earliest discoveries of Australia down to the naming and taking possession of New South Wales by Cook, the Navigator; the formation of a penal settlement at Port Jackson, or Sydney under Captain Phillip, the first Governor of the territory; and a brief but complete and faithful memoir of the several administrations of his successors in the government of the colony. We have given, however, in a separate chapter, a larger proportionate space to the administrations of Sir Richard Bourke and Sir George Gipps, both from the greater development of the country during their |