when he left it, left behind him a habitable country; Hunter and King
followed him and held the country, though nearly every man's hand was
against them, and the industrious and the virtuous among their people
could be numbered by the fingers of the hand. Yet these men and their
officers dotted the coast-line with their discoveries, and by what they
wrought in the direction of sea exploration more than made up for what
they lacked in the art of civil governing. Bligh honestly endeavoured in a
blundering way to accomplish that which only the sharp lesson of his
mistake made possible; Macquarie, backed by a regiment, began his
administration with concessions, and continued for many years to govern
the colony, chiefly for the benefit of the emancipists instead of for its
officials. Whatever evils may have come of his methods, it has been said
of him that "he found a garrison and a gaol, and left the broad and deep
foundations of an empire." Such foundation was really laid by his
successors, who encouraged the emigration of free men who presently
demanded that Australia should no longer be used as a place of
punishment, and its lands as a reward for felons; that it must be a
British colony in the fullest and freest sense. It is to these men,
marching forward upon ways cut for them by the naval pioneers, we owe the
fulfilment of Phillip's prediction that "this would be the most valuable
acquisition England ever made."



INDEX


Abbott, Captain, 144, 147, 257.
Abrolhos, 11, 15, 17, 38.
_Adamant_, H.M.S., 288.