y from ill
health, having acted with much prudence and vigour during his
administration, and leaving behind him a respectable character; he
returned to England, where his services were rewarded by a pension of
400_l._ a-year, and he retired to Bath, at which city he died. His
activity in exploring the neighbouring country and discovering its
capabilities, his courage and firmness on many very trying occasions,
his steady opposition to every proposal of abandoning the settlement,
together with his general character, sufficiently entitle his memory to
regard and respect from those who are now living in New South Wales, and
reaping in comparative ease the fruit of that harvest which it cost him
and others great pains and many trials to sow.

Before the first Governor of New South Wales left that country, he had
the satisfaction of seeing its prospects of a future sufficiency of
provisions very greatly improved; and a work of charity, the hospital at
Paramatta, was completed in the month before that in which he sailed.
With the year 1793 began a new government, for as no successor had been
appointed at home to Captain Phillip, the chief power now came,
according to what had been previously provided, into the hands of
Major Grose, of the New South Wales Corps, who assumed the style of
Lieutenant-Governor. During nearly three years things continued in
this state; only Major Grose left the settlement, and was succeeded by
Captain Paterson; nor was it until 1795 that a regular successor to
the first governor arrived in the colony. In this period many things
occurred which were, no doubt, of the highest interest to the settlers
at the time, but few events which deserve our particular notice now.
A fire, which destroyed a house worth 15_l._, and thirty bushels of
new wheat;--the alternate scarcity and comparative abundance of
provisions;--the arrival or departure of ships from the harbour;--the
commission of the first murder in the colony, and other sad accounts
of human depravity and its punishment;--the gradual improvement and
extension of the colony;--the first sale by auction of a farm of
twenty-five acres for the sum of 13_l._:--these and similar subjects
occupy the history of New South Wales, not merely during the three years
that elapsed between Governor Phillip's departure and the arrival of his
successor, but also during the long period of gradual but increasing
improvement which followed the last event.

Yet, while th