BY JAMES BACKHOUSE WALKER. 243 



with the class of people the Governor had to control ; 

 but, for all that, the community, taking all things into 

 consideration, seems to have been fairly orderly and well 

 behaved, and to have been free from the flagrant abuses 

 and general demoralisation which disgraced the early 

 years of the Port Jackson settlement, and which 

 afterwards sprung up in this colony under less capable 

 governors than Collins. 



That Collins must have had first-rate qualities as a 

 ruler is evidenced by the fact of the rapid progress made 

 by the colony during the first six months of its existence — 

 from February to the beginning of August — the time 

 covered by the present paper. When, on the 9th August, 

 1804, the Ocean sailed for Port Jackson with Lieut. 

 Bowen and the rest of the Risdon people, whom the 

 Governor was so glad to be rid of, the new settlement at 

 Sullivan's Cove was already organised, and with every 

 prospect of permanent success. 



After the lapse of well nigh a century, we, the inhabi- 

 tants of the fair city which has arisen on the site of the 

 Camp of 1804, would show ourselves strangely unmindful 

 of what we owe to the past if we did not hold in honour 

 the name of David Collins, and if we failed to keep in 

 grateful remembrance the sagacity and energy which he, 

 our first Lieut. -Governor, displayed in the founding of 

 Hobart, 85 years ago. 



