ecall them, and soon after gave
orders for getting under way. Perhaps I should have lost much time had
I waited for a more favourable opportunity: and the exploring of
this island was not worth such a sacrifice."

At eight in the evening the ships got under way, and at day-break on
the following morning sail was crowded for Botany Bay.

Chapter VII.

AT BOTANY BAY.

When, in 1787, the British Government entrusted Captain Arthur Phillip
with a commission to establish a colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales,
they gave him explicit directions as to where he should locate the
settlement. "According to the best information which we have obtained,"
his instructions read, "Botany Bay appears to be the most eligible
situation upon the said coast for the first establishment, possessing a
commodious harbour and other advantages which no part of the said coast
hitherto discovered affords." But Phillip was a trustworthy man who, in
so serious a matter as the choice of a site for a town, did not follow
blindly the commands of respectable elderly gentlemen thousands of
miles away. It was his business to found a settlement successfully. To
do that he must select the best site.

After examining Botany Bay, he decided to take a trip up the coast and
see if a better situation could not be found. On the 21st January,
1788, he entered Port Jackson with three boats, and found there "the
finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may
ride in the most perfect security." He fixed upon a cove "which I
honoured with the name of Sydney." and decided that that was
there he would "plant." Every writer of mediaeval history who has had
occasion to refer to the choice by Constantine the Great of Byzantium,
afterwards Constantinople, as his capital, has extolled his judgment
and prescience. Constantine was an Emperor, and could do as he would.
Arthur Phillip was an official acting under orders. We can never
sufficiently admire the wisdom he displayed when, exercising his own
discretion, he decided upon Port Jackson. True, he had a great
opportunity, but his signal merit is that he grasped it when it was
presented, that he gave more regard to the success of his task than to
the letter of his instructions.

While he was making the search, the eleven vessels composing the First
Fleet lay in Botany Bay. He returned on the evening of the 23rd, and
immediately gave orders that the whole company should as soon as
possibl