Beyond
These Natural Barriers The Island Was Covered With Pines And Carpeted
With The Most Beautiful Verdure.
It is probable that we should then
have met with some culinary vegetables, and this hope increased our
desire of visiting a land where Captain Cook had landed with the
greatest facility.
He, it is true, was here in fine weather, that had
continued for several days; whilst we had been sailing in such heavy
seas that for eight day, our ports had been shut and our dead-lights
in. From the ship I watched the motions of the boats with my glass; and
seeing, as night approached, that they had found no convenient place
for landing, I made the signal to recall them, and soon after gave
orders for getting under way. Perhaps I should have lost much time had
I waited for a more favourable opportunity: and the exploring of
this island was not worth such a sacrifice."
At eight in the evening the ships got under way, and at day-break on
the following morning sail was crowded for Botany Bay.
Chapter VII.
AT BOTANY BAY.
When, in 1787, the British Government entrusted Captain Arthur Phillip
with a commission to establish a colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales,
they gave him explicit directions as to where he should locate the
settlement. "According to the best information which we have obtained,"
his instructions read, "Botany Bay appears to be the most eligible
situation upon the said coast for the first establishment, possessing a
commodious harbour and other advantages which no part of the said coast
hitherto discovered affords." But Phillip was a trustworthy man who, in
so serious a matter as the choice of a site for a town, did not follow
blindly the commands of respectable elderly gentlemen thousands of
miles away.
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