CHAPTER XIII 

 THE FOUNDING OF AUSTRALIA 



A~~EW world was now coming to its birth, far 

 away in the Southern Seas. 

 It has not hitherto been certainly known 

 to whom is to be credited the proposal to 

 colonize New South Wales. 1 From the following con- 

 siderations, there can be no doubt that it originated with 

 Sir Joseph Banks, either in his own mind, or in con- 

 ference with two or three friends. Botany Bay was 

 associated with a glorious period in his life ; when, in 

 company with Solander and Cook, and obsessed with a 

 furious zeal for his favourite science, he visited a new and 

 fertile and health-giving land. He could never forget 

 Botany Bay. Its treasures were represented in his 

 Herbarium, and many of his comrades on the Expedition 

 were still among his personal friends. 



A Committee of the House of Commons was sitting 

 in 1779 ; occupied on the question of the transportation 

 of felons. Sir Joseph Banks was examined before this 

 Committee. He urged that the coast of New Holland 

 was the place best adapted for the purpose ; the country 

 was thinly peopled, the climate was mild and moderate, 



1 The people of Sydney have been sufficiently enterprising of late 

 years in telling the tale of their early history. They have been the 

 better able to do this, by the acquisition of a number of documents of all 

 kinds which were bought at Sotheby's sale of Banks MSS. in 1886. 

 Several volumes of " Records " have been printed ; and the beginning 

 of an authoritative History of New South Wales is the work of Mr. G. B. 

 Barton, Barrister-at-Law (vol. I, 1889). See also J. H. Maiden's Banks 

 the Father of Australia (Sydney, 1909). 



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