

COEAL REEFS, 371 



place of easy refuge. In war it would command security to 

 a passage where a single enemy's ship might inflict much 

 mischief. Its distance from Sydney, 1,700 miles, would 

 make it an admirable depot for coal in the steam navigation 

 towards India. Though without a "harbour this is little 

 needed, since the reefs, themselves, which create the danger 

 of the .Strait, protect the sea from all heavy swells and render 

 anchorage secure. At Evans's Bay, which is suggested as 

 a site for the settlement, there are dry rocky places for 

 building, pools of fresh water, and a considerable surface of 

 fertile land ; frequent rains, fresh breezes, and a healthy 

 vegetation. All these advantages are absent at Port Essing- 

 ton ; and putting the matter on a personal footing, Mr. Jukes 

 declares that if co-ndemned to either, he would rather live at 

 Cape York for five years than at Port Essington for two ; 

 an odd numerical formula of preference, but sufficiently 

 intelligible to us. 



The right manner of solving the question we believe to 

 be, that Cape York should be adopted as a new settlement, 

 and Port Essington not abandoned. Mistress of Gibraltar, 

 Aden, and Singapore, and fully cognisant of the value of such 

 positions for commerce and power, England can hardly choose 

 but plant her flag on a promontory which commands the 

 passage between two oceans. But the whole shores of the 

 Continent of which it is one extremity, are becoming hers by 

 discovery and colonisation; and in relation to the future 

 commerce of the Indian Archipelago, some more western 

 points on this northern coast require to be occupied, even 

 though offering little present benefit or promise. The active 

 spirit which at this time pervades the world, working with 

 new means and appliances of every kind, will vivify in the end 

 what is barren now ; and no expenditure or labour can be better 

 bestowed than in aiding by anticipation the progress which com- 

 merce and colonisation are making on these distant shores. 



