II. NORMAN SELFE. 



of historians. He did not commence his career in this land as an 

 inexperienced youth, like many other men who were afterwards 

 sent out in order that a position might be found for them ; but he 

 had a reputation as an engineer and surveyor before he reached 

 this State with Governor Phillip. In 1755 he was Ensign in the 

 King's Eighth Regiment of Foot and served with his regiment in 

 France. In 1760 he was Aide-de-Camp to Prince Ferdinand and 

 several Generals. In 1763 he was Engineer of Roads in the 

 Highlands of Scotland. As captain of the Manchester Corps at 

 the Siege of Gibraltar, General Elliot made him assistant engineer. 

 In 1785 he was appointed engineer of the island of Mauritius, 

 and in 1786 when the Pitt Ministry required a capable engineer 

 and land surveyor to proceed to the proposed settlement at Botany 

 Bay, Captain Alt was selected ; and on the 28th of October 1786, 

 the King in Council signed his commission as surveyor of the 

 Territory of New South Wales. Captain Alt's first important 

 work in the State was the laying out of the town of Sydney in 

 conjunction with Governor Phillip, who appears from statements 

 made in his letters, to have had some knowledge as an engineer 

 and surveyor. In the first design for the future " City of the 

 South," dated July 1788 the principal street was intended to be 

 two hundred feet wide, and the allotments were to have frontages 

 of sixty feet with a depth of one hundred and fifty feet. The 

 ground at first marked out for Government House was intended 

 to include the Main Guard and Civil and Military Courts on the 

 one block. The site chosen was about where new St. Phillip's 

 church now stands. The hospital was to be built on the west 

 side of Sydney Cove, about where the Mariner's church now is, 

 and the storehouses to be by the water side where the Commissariat 

 'buildings — still standing — were afterwards erected by Governor 

 Macquarie. The Military Barracks were to be erected near the 

 grounds subsequently adopted, now the site of Wynyard Square ; 

 and the blocks to the west of it (the ground running to the south- 

 ward of the ofiicials' quarters being nearly level) was thought to 

 foe suitable for building the wide streets proposed. It was intended 



