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.

Phillip's "eye for ground" told him that the shores of Port Jackson were a
better site for a settlement than the land near Botany Bay, but he had no
sooner landed his people than the need for better soil than Sydney
afforded was apparent. Then began a series of land expeditions into the
interior, in which, with such poor means as these pioneers possessed, the
country was penetrated right to the foot of the Blue Mountains. The first
governor, despite the slight foothold he had established at Sydney--little