1088 president's address. 



for many years, though with ultimate success. The Mascareiie 

 Archipelago was in the hands of the French, the Cape of Good Hope 

 of the Dutch. A more isolated position can hardly be imagined 

 than that of Sydney; and during the early years of this colony the 

 consequences of this isolation were severely felt. And a more 

 trying and responsible office can hardly be conceived than 

 that of the first governor, a man of extraordinary fertility of 

 design and unparalleled resolution. It is commonly, whether 

 from ignorance or malignity, asserted that the British, no 

 longer able to transport their criminals into enforced servitud(j 

 in the American colonies, selected this extremity of the habitable 

 globe as a convenient spot for disposal of refuse. But those who 

 have taken the trouble to ascertain the facts, know that it was 

 philanthropy, and not mere selfishness, that dictated the course 

 then pursued. The first impulse however, which may be studied 

 in the inaugural speech of Governor Phillip, whether altogether 

 authentic or not, was almost lost sight of in the brutalising distrac- 

 tions of the tremendous war in which Britain was soon engaged : 

 and there is much in this part of our history which no Australian 

 can regard with complacency. 



It may serve as a help to the memory to note that the trial of 

 Warren Hastings took place, and the malady of King George III. 

 was declared during this year : Lord George Gordon was im- 

 prisoned for the Anti-popery Kiots ; the Young Pretender died at 

 Rome ; the last Assembly of the Notables, " the last terrestrial 

 Notables, not to reappear any other time in the History of the 

 "World," came to an end, and George Washington had not yet 

 been elected First President of the United States of America. The 

 whole world was, as it were, in labour for the terrible convul- 

 sions which were now upon the point of development. And I 

 suppose that seldom, if ever, have the domestic politics of Britain 

 been in worse case than they were then. 



Yet this moment, while the thunders of the storm were already 

 muttering, and the foundations of the whole structure of society 



