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"The benevolent intentions of Her Majesty, her Majesty's advisers, and of the British Parliament, are so well set forth in the words of the noble Secretary of State, that I feel I should only weaken the effect they are calculated to produce upon you, were I at any length to comment on them, or make to them additions of my own. I cannot, however, gentlemen, on this my first occasion of addressing you, avoid adverting to the peculiar constitution which has been given to your body-or to the fact, that to you singly have been confided by the Imperial Parliament the powers, which in some of the older colonies of Great Britain are divided between two separate bodies.

"The council, gentlemen, is composed of three elements, or three different classes of persons the representatives of the people the official servants of Her Majesty, and of gentlemen of independence— the unofficial nominees of the Crown.

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"Let it not be said or supposed that these three classes of persons have, or ought to have, separate interests to support still less that they have opposing interests, or any interest whatever, save that of the public good. Let there be no rivalry between them, save which shall in courtesy excel the other, and which of them devote itself most heartily to the service of their common country.

"His Excellency then retired."

The fifty-five years which fill the space between the two above noticed extraordinary and strikingly contrasting eras, 1788 and 1843-a period unparalleled in the records of any colony have been marked on the part of the colonists by many severe trials, continual struggles, extensive improvements, and that praiseworthy perseverance in developing the resources of the country, and in raising themselves in the social and commercial scale, which have at last

won the colony its richly deserved Representative government.

In a political point of view, the history of this intermediate epoch is replete with facts of the deepest interest to the philosopher and the statesman; affording, in many instances, an insight into the curious processes attending the elaboration of social schemes, and corroborating in others, what has been long ago proved to be the case, viz. that the most captivating theories are not always the most practicable and successful, and that a measure the least dependent on theories, but which results from, and is subservient to, the actual exigencies of society, never fails to promote its welfare.

Thus the system of transportation, which was denounced by European politicians and moralists, as fraught with mischief and ruin to society, because inconsistent with their theories and maxims of criminal legislation and political morality, has succeeded to a certainty as well ascertained as any circumstance may be by human experience; and has succeeded in spite of bitter invective, plausible reasoning, unmeasured censure; and, strange to say, through the very means which theory pointed out as having a most dangerous tendency, namely, the encouraging of free men to emigrate into a penal colony, and the encouraging of those in bond to industry and to the acquisition of property.

To enter at large into the benefits of transportation combined with free emigration; to point out the calumnies and wilful misrepresentations, or the unintentional, but not less flagrant misconceptions to which this question has exposed New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land; to attempt to remove the ridiculous prejudices, or the mistaken impressions, of the mother country in respect to the true state of these colonies; and, lastly, to render justice to the

colonists themselves for the steady deportment and the unwearying efforts they have so courageously displayed throughout their colonial career, would be to enter on subjects quite foreign to the physical description of the two countries.

The origin of the colonies has been touched upon, because that origin is to be ascribed to the hydrographical knowledge which the government of the mother country possessed regarding the capabilities of the eastern coast of New Holland: some of the events, also, connected with the progress of the colony have been just adverted to, because the importance they have assumed in respect to commerce and industry has operated most powerfully and beneficially in causing a completion of surveys by sea and land, the history of which is now laid before the reader.

MARINE SURVEYS.

THE first page of this history commences with the voyage of Captain Cook. With those anterior to his, whether undertaken by Portuguese, Spanish, or Dutch navigators, science has little to do. They were all jealous and avaricious, and kept their discoveries secret, seeking, and some of them indeed finding, their reward in self-aggrandisement: thus leaving behind names which only perpetuate their own or their country's illiberality.

Cook also transmitted his name to posterity, but it was by virtue of the benefits he conferred upon the aborigines of the different islands which he visited, and by those also which his voyages, through the medium of the press, secured to geography, natural history, navigation, and commerce. With him may be said to have dawned the first glimpses of positive knowledge which the civilised world obtained

regarding the existence of Terra Australis; and with him also commenced that series of maritime surveys which, followed up by Flinders and King, give to Great Britain the most legitimate title to the sovereignty of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land.

It was during his first voyage, in April 1770, that Cook, on leaving New Zealand, discovered, in the neighbourhood of Cape Howe, the eastern shore of New Holland. The place which he at first anchored at, the Botany Bay of our times, may be thus looked upon as the commencing point of his survey. From Botany Bay he proceeded to the northward. In the neighbourhood of Cape Tribulation, his ship struck on a coral reef; which accident threatened to be as fatal as the subsequent escape from its consequences appears wonderful. wonderful. The vessel having been repaired at Endeavour river, resumed its voyage of discovery. Keeping along the shore, the expedition reached a point of land from which appeared an open sea to the westward, and passed through the strait between New Holland and New Guinea, the existence of which, although long ago discovered, had been partially kept a secret, and was considered by Cook himself as very doubtful. At Cape York, from whence the distinguished voyager directed his course to Java, terminated his cursory examination of that part of the east coast of New Holland which lies north of Botany Bay. Southward of that locality, nothing was known beyond what, in the second voyage of Captain Cook, Captain Furneaux, tracing the southern and a part of the eastern coast of Van Diemen's Land, reported, namely, "that there is no strait between New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, but a very deep bay!"

To the south-west and west, several points of the coast had been seen at different periods by occasional and transient navigators. Of the partial contributions which thus accrued to hydrography, none are more

worthy of record than those of the French expedition in 1792, which, while sailing under Admiral d'Entrecasteaux, in search of the unfortunate "La Perouse,” favoured the scientific world with a published survey of the coast line from Cape Lecuwin to Long. 132° in New Holland, and of the south extremity of Van Diemen's Land, including the river Derwent and the channel which bears d'Entrecasteaux's name.

"The charts of the last survey, particularly those relating to the bays, ports, and arms of the sea of the south-east of Van Diemen's Land, and constructed in this expedition by M. Beautemps Beaupré and his assistants, appear to combine scientific accuracy and minuteness of detail with an uncommon degree of neatness in the execution. They contain some of the finest specimens of marine surveying perhaps ever made in a new country."- (Flinders.) The knowledge of the form and outline of this still mysterious continent, as derived from these occasional surveys, or from the rumours which naturally arose through the obstinate secrecy of the Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch, amounted pretty nearly to this:- that Terra Australis is composed of two large continents, of which the more easterly included Van Diemen's Land, and which were divided by a wide channel running from north to south, the Gulf of Carpenteria being considered the northern extremity of that channel, and the great Australian bight, the southerly one.

Such was the sum of geographical information or rather misinformation respecting this section of the world prior to 1797, when in that year, Midshipman Flinders, and Mr. Bass, surgeon in his Majesty's navy, visitors to the then already flourishing colony of Port Jackson, undertook a series of expeditions which not only led to a discovery of the straits between New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, but of various harbours and rivers in the two countries.

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