26 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



Nightingall had dwelt more on the drawbacks of the position 

 than the advantages ; the salary (2,000) was small, the dis- 

 tance great, and in short, unless he was fairly sure of a pension of 

 not less than 1,000 for the rest of his life, he could not under- 

 take a service attended with so many disadvantages, and . . . 

 which at the outset must be viewed as both difficult and un- 

 pleasant. 1 The near prospect, however, of obtaining a regiment 

 would perhaps in the eyes of his friends justify his accepting a 

 situation which otherwise might be considered by a military 

 man of fair prospects and good expectations as little better 

 than a waste of time.' 2 Indeed the prospect of four or five 

 years in New South Wales, " deprived of almost all communica- 

 tion with England," was for him a prospect of profitless exile. 3 



Very different was the view taken of the position by Sir 

 Joseph Banks in 1795. " You have," he wrote to Hunter in 1/95, 

 " a prospect before you of no small interest to the feeling mind 

 a Colony just emerging from the miseries to which new 

 colonists are uniformly subjected ; to your abilities it is left to 

 model the rising state into a happy nation, and I have no doubt 

 you will effect your purpose ". 4 



Such high aims and eager hopes had animated Phillip when 

 he set out to found the Colony in 1788, but of his three naval 

 successors not one echoed his enthusiasm. Hunter, for ex- 

 ample, " a pleasant and sensible old man, " 5 after four years of 

 office, put his view with much ingenuousness. " My former 

 knowledge and acquaintance with this country," 6 he wrote, 

 " encouraged me in a hope, which, however, has in some re- 

 spects proved delusive, that I should with ease to myself and 

 with proper effect and advantage to the public " (a considera- 

 tion he places second) " have been able to manage all the 

 duties of my office ". 7 



Viceroyalty in India. In 1805 he was made a K.C.B. After resigning his ap- 

 pointment as Governor of New South Wales he went again to India, where he 

 was given the command in Bengal. He returned to England in 1819 and sat in 

 the House of Commons for Eye from 1820 to 1826. See Dictionary of National 

 Biography. 



1 Nightingall to Castlereagh, 6th December, 1808. H.R., VI., p. 810. 



J Ibid. a Ibid. 



Sir Joseph Banks to Hunter, 3oth March, 1797. H.R., III., p. 202. 



H.R., III., p. 730, i3th October, 1799. Letter from a ship's officer. 



He had been second in command in the fleet of 1788. 



7 Hunter to Sir Samuel Bentham, aoth May, 1799. H.R., III., p. 673. 



