"The appearance of those prisoners who did not require medical
assistance was lean and emaciated. Several of these miserable
people died in the boats as they were rowing on shore or on the
wharf as they were being lifted out of the boats, both the living
and the dead exhibiting more horrid spectacles than had ever been
witnessed in this country. All this was to be attributed to
confinement, and that of the worst species--confinement in a small
space and in irons, not put on singly, but many of them chained
together. On board the _Scarborough_ a plan had been formed to
take the ship.... This necessarily, on that ship, occasioned much
future circumspection; but Captain Marshall's humanity
considerably lessened the severity which the insurgents might
naturally have expected. On board the other ships the masters, who
had the entire direction of the prisoners, never suffered them to
be at large on deck, and but a few at a time were permitted there.
This consequently gave birth to many diseases. It was said that on
board the _Neptune_ several had died in irons; and what added to
the horror of such a circumstance was that their deaths were
concealed for the purpose of sharing their allowance of provisions
until chance and the offensiveness of a corpse directed a surgeon
or someone who had authority in the ship to the spot where it
lay."
Phillip's commission made him governor-in-chief, and captain-general over
all New South Wales, which then meant from Cape York, in the extreme north
of Australia, to the "south cape of Van Diemen's Land," then, of course,
supposed to be part of the main continent. He was ordered to land at
Botany Bay and there form the settlement, but was given a discretionary
power to change the site, if he considered it unsuitable.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF BOTANY BAY. From an engraving from a drawing by
R. Cleveley, in "The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay" [London,
1789].]
Recognizing the unsuitability of Botany Bay, Phillip, before all the ships
of the first fleet were arrived, set out in an [Sidenote: 1788]
open boat to explore the coast; and so, sailing northward, entered that
bay only mentioned by Cook in the words before quoted, "abrest of an open
bay," and by Hawkesworth (writing in the first person as Cook) thus:--
"At this time" (noon May 6th, 1770) "we were between two and three
miles from the land and abrest of a good bay or harbour, in which
there appeared to be a good anchorage, and which I called Port
Jackson."
Perhaps, when Phillip's boat passed between the north and south heads of
Port Jackson, he exclaimed what has so often been repeated since: "What a
magnificent harbour!" And so on the 26th January, 1788, Sydney was founded
upon the shores of the most beautiful bay in the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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