famine
constantly stared the governor in the face, and his command was increased
by a second and third fleet of prisoners; storeships, when they were sent,
were wrecked; many of Phillip's subordinates did their duty indifferently,
often hindered his work, and persistently recommended the home Government
to abandon the attempt to colonize. Sum up these difficulties, remember
that they were bravely and uncomplainingly overcome, and the character of
Phillip's administration can then in some measure be understood.

With the blacks the governor soon made friends, and such moments as
Phillip allowed himself for leisure from the care of his own people he
chiefly devoted in an endeavour to improve the state of the native race.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE SETTLEMENT OF SYDNEY COVE, PORT JACKSON, 20th
AUGUST, 1788. Drawn by E. Dayes from a sketch by J. Hunter. From "An
Historical Journal of Transactions at Port Jackson," by Captain John
Hunter. _To face p_.84.]

As soon as the exiles were landed he married up as many of his male
prisoners as could be induced to take wives from the female convicts,
offered them inducements to work, and swiftly punished the lazy and
incorrigible--severely, say the modern democratic writers, but all the
same mildly as punishments went in those days.

When famine was upon the land he shared equally the short commons of the
public stores; and when "Government House" gave a dinnerparty, officers
took their own bread in their pockets that they might have something to
eat.

As time went on he established farms, planned a town of wide, imposing
streets (a plan afterwards departed from by his successors, to the
everlasting regret of their successors), and introduced a system of land
grants which has ever since formed the basis of the colony's land laws,
although politicians and lawyers have too long had their say in
legislation for Phillip's plans to be any longer recognizable or the
existing laws intelligible.[B]

[Footnote B: A leader of the Bar in New South Wales, an eminent Q.C. of
the highest talent, has publicly declared (and every honest man agrees
with him) that the existing land laws are unintelligible to anyone, lawyer
or layman.]

The peculiar fitness of Phillip for the task imposed on him was, there is
little doubt, due largely to his naval training, and no naval officer has
better justified Lord Palmerston's happily worded and well-deserved
compliment to the profession, "Whenever I wa