.......Governor Phillip I have sent this before to our list, but it is very interesting. I will have to send it by two emails because of the length. Please don't send it back to the list if commenting :) Although he spent much time organising...... he did leave a few things behind. The foundation of the settlement on the eastern coast of Australia was entrusted to Captain Arthur Phillip, and his methods and the results of his work indicate that a more fortunate selection could not have been made. By his infinite tact, by his extraordinary foresight, and by his devotion to high ideals, he succeeded in establishing the infant colony on a secure foundation during the five years of his government. He was selected to take charge of the proposed settlement at Botany Bay by Lord Sydney, Secretary of State for the Home Department. This selection did not escape criticism, for Lord Howe, the First Lord of the Admiralty, stated in a letter to Lord Sydney, dated 3rd September 1786, "I cannot say the little knowledge I have of Captain Phillips would have led me to select him for a service of this complicated nature," and practically dissociated himself from all responsibility in the appointment. The reasons, which influenced Lord Sydney in his choice, are not evident. He appears to have possessed the rare facility of perceiving intuitively the latent powers in the men with whom he came in contact, and to have recognised in Captain Arthur Phillips a man of action, and a born administrator, possessing the iron will and determination to carry all his decisions to their logical conclusion. Arthur Phillip was born in London on the 11th October 1738, and was forty-eight years of age at the date of his appointment. His father, Jacob Phillip, was a native of Frankfort in Germany, who had settled in England and had married the widow of a Captain Herbert. Phillip’s school days were passed at Greenwich; and at the age of sixteen, he entered the navy, serving first under Captain Michael Everet. He was present at the capture of Havannah, and on the 7th June 1761, was appointed a lieutenant in the Stirling castle by Sir George Pockle. At the conclusion of the Seven Years War, when he was retired on half pay, he settled at Lyndhursy in the New Forest occupying himself in farming and in the usual duties of a country gentleman. But such pursuits were ill favoured by the man of action; and when hostilities commenced between Spain & Portugal, Phillip sought and obtained permission to offer his services to the latter country. His offer was at once accepted, and he fought for Portugal until the outbreak of the war between England and France in 1778 called for his return to the service of his own King. His promotion then became rapid; and on the 2nd September 1779, he was made master and commander of the fire-ship Basilisk; on the 13th November 1781, he became post-captain in the frigate Ariadue, and on the 23rd December following he was appointed to the Europe of sixty-four guns. In January 1783, he was despatched with reinforcement to the East Indies, and had returned a short time before the preparations for the proposed settlement at Botany Bay were commenced. Prior to his appointment, Captain Phillip had proved himself to be an active and zealous officer, possessed of ‘habitual prudence’ and a sound knowledge of men and their management. His experience on the quarterdeck had not converted him into an autocrat as similar experiences had so often in that era converted men possessing intellects of a lower plane. When endowed with the almost absolute powers which he held in the settlement, his actions, even when under gross provocation, were always tempered with tact and forbearance towards his subordinates The magnitude of the undertaking entrusted to Captain Phillip was stupendous. He was charged with the transportation of over one thousand persons to a land that was little known, and with their settlement on a coast separated from the nearest civilisation by a voyage of nearly three months through almost unchartered seas. If anything was overlooked in the preliminary arrangements, he knew that at least six or seven months must elapse before the neglect could be remedied by a visit to a foreign port, or eighteen months if communication was made with England; and even these periods were entirely dependent on the proviso that no accident should arise from the dangers of virtually unknown navigation. One cannot sufficiently admire the industrious and exact forethought which, combined with importunity insistent though polite, enabled Phillip in spite of official negligence and stupidity to achieve the foundation of the colony. The first commission for the appointment of Governor Phillip was dated the 12th October 1786. From that date until early in May 1787, he was actively employed in arranging the manifold details in connection with the projected colony. At the various conferences held at the Home Department, the broad general plan was conveyed to Phillip, but the consideration of many of the details appears to have originated entirely from himself. By his foresight in noting and requiring instructions on the various problems which might arise in his administration, proof is clearly given to Phillip, the navel post-captain, was a man in a thousand of his contemporaries. Every point was minutely considered and a solution suggested. The statement in a memorandum sent by Phillip to the Home Department that “I would not wish convicts to lay the foundations of an Empire” is indicative of his appreciation of the future possibilities of the settlement. In this memorandum, he showed that he possessed advanced ideas; for he considered that the criminal code of the day was too drastic in the infliction of the death penalty; and that this punishment should be reserved for two crimes – murder and sodomy. His idea that the death sentence should be fulfilled by delivering the criminal to the mercies of cannibals does not possess the same inhuman bearing which would be felt at the present time, for it must be remembered that a captain of the period was accustomed to the floggings common in the navy and that the cruelties practised in the hulks and debtors’ prisons of the day were well known. One more striking sentence from the same memorandum must be quoted to exemplify Phillip’s large and humanitarian ideas – “there can be no slavery in a free land, and consequently no slaves.” Apart from the consideration of such problems as live-stock, agriculture, horticulture, the encouragement of marriage, the treatment of the natives, and port orders, Phillip’s faculty for detail may be illustrated by his request for razors and for tin lamps as presents to the natives for “when they use a light they hold it in their hands.” When the preparations for the settlement was concluded Phillip set sail in the H.M.S. Sirius on the 13th of May 1787, as Commodore for the eleven vessels constituting the first fleet. During the eight months which were occupied in the voyage, Phillip spent many hours in planning and arranging for his future administration. Anxious discussions were held with his Lieutenant-Governor, Major Ross, and the Judge-Advocate, Captain Collins. Notwithstanding all his foresight, shortly after sailing Phillip had found that such important items as the convict indent papers, women's clothing and some of the ordnance stores, had been left behind in England. After leaving the Cape of Good Hope, Governor Phillip transshipped to the armed tender Supply, on the 25th November 1787, with the intention of arriving at Botany Bay at an early date by out-sailing the rest of the fleet and making preparations for the reception of his charges. This design was frustrated, for the Supply anchored a few hours only before the remainder of the squadron. The first act of moment performance by Governor Phillip was his choice of the site for the principal settlement. He spent two days in the examination of Botany Bay and quickly recognised the disadvantages of its foreshores; three days were then occupied in the exploration of Port Jackson. The promptitude with which he selected the site at Sydney Cove is illustrative of his faculty for rapid decision. The selection was determined by the fact that the cove possessed "the best spring of water," but Phillip realised also that ships could "anchor so close to the shore that at a very small expense quays may be made at which the largest ships may unload." Even with the most exact knowledge of later days, a more suitable site could not have been chosen in the two harbours of Botany Bay and Sydney Cove. With the landing of convicts at Sydney Cove, Phillip's difficulties at once commenced. Soon after his arrival, Governor Phillip found that he could not rely on the assistance of Lieutenant-Governor Ross or the military, and that he had to contend with Ross's convert antagonism. The first evidence of this was given when the officers stubbornly refused to "interfere with the convicts", by encouraging or reprimanding those at work, and Phillip found that "the little plan I had formed in the passage for the government of these people" was destined to be thwarted. Phillip was not provided with the assistance of any superintendents of convicts - the mariners were regarded as guards - and so when the officers refused to assist, Phillip was compelled to employ the well-behaved convicts as superintendents. Discontent was soon shown by the officers because they were compelled to sit as members of the criminal court. In this action, they were openly supported and possibly instigated by Major Ross. Major Ross also embarrassed the administration by placing five out of the eighteen officers of marines under arrest at one time. He further in the most petty and almost mutinous manner objected to interference with his control of convicts, a duty that he had previously declined to accept. The whole career of Major Ross at Port Jackson appears to have been a premeditated attempt to subvert the authority of Governor Phillip and to overthrow the civil government. On the 7th of March 1790, Governor Phillip sent Major Ross to take the command of Norfolk Island, and it is probable that by this appointment an open breach between the civil and military powers was averted. Throughout these first two years, Phillip displayed the most remarkable tact and discretion in his treatment of the military; and when Ross time after time attempted to checkmate Phillip’s decisions, he forcefully but quietly maintained his authority and dignity. Phillips magnanimity and his diffidence in reporting unfavorably on the conduct of a subordinate is well shown by the postscript of a letter to Under Secretary Nepean, when he stated; “After reading this letter which I have written with haste and with desire of explaining how little reason there has been for complaint I think it appears so like a letter to justify my own conduct that I wish you to lay only the enclosed letters before Lord Sydney.” .... continued Lesley Uebel mailto:ckennedy@bigpond.net.au CLAIM A CONVICT http://users.bigpond.net.au/convicts/index.html

....continued The labours of Governor Phillip may be divided into sections - the foundation of the settlement and the establishment of the government. After the selection of the site, he was confronted with the problem of converting the primitive bush into suitable headquarters for the colony. Within six months he had formulated a plan for the intended town. This plan was undoubtedly the work of a master mind; it was intended that advantage should be taken of the prevailing winds in laying out the direction of the principal streets, the building clauses should be enforced in the ejection of all houses, that the streets should be two hundred feet wide, and that the fee simple of all the land contained within the boundaries of the town should remain forever the property of the Crown. Some of these provisions, proposed without any previous precedent for guidance and conceived over 200 years ago, would be considered advanced and superior conceptions in a publicist of the present day. Unfortunately for the present city of Sydney the exigencies of the day, the struggle for existence and the scarcity of labour, compelled Phillip to shelve these proposals, and they were never fulfilled. In many of his other provisions for settlement, Phillip appears to have been a dreamer not only of ideals but of practical methods and a master hand in the initiation and development of new procedures. He advocated the granting of lands to the churches in lieu of all tithes on the produce of land, he modified the instructions, which he had received, to reserve an equal area of land for the Crown between each grant, because he foresaw the dangers of isolation and consequent depredations by natives and marauders and because each grantee would have been compelled to erect an entire boundary fence instead of sharing a party fence with his neighbour; with the advise probably of Captain Collins he drew up the form of land grant which was maintained with slight modifications so long as the first system of grants was in vogue; and he initiated the system of land leases by the Crown. In the establishment of the government, Governor Phillip maintained an absolute control; no subject or no detail was too small to pass unnoticed under his watchful eye. All daily orders were issued by him with the exception of the purely battalion orders of Major Ross. The criminal court, the civil court and the bench of magistrates were summoned by him, and the proceedings of the first and the last were carefully considered and revised with regard to the punishments ordered; in the exercise of this jurisdiction Phillip's actions were always tempered with mercy. He fixed the rations; he granted permission for marriage; he authorised the assistance to settlers; he made the necessary appointments to the different gangs for public labour; by periodical visits to Rose Hill, he was personally cognisant of all details in agricultural progress. In fact every department of human activity was constantly under his observation and direction, and by his humanity and unselfishness he was the father as well as the founder of the settlement. Phillip's labours in initiation and organisation were carried on in the face of enormous difficulties, and when he was in very poor health. His ill-health commenced in 1788 and continued throughout his government, and although he himself never complained, on many occasions it was only his iron will that kept him at the helm; at the social gatherings, on his exploring expeditions and when on visits of inspection, he was frequently a silent sufferer of intense pain. The difficulties confronted and overcome were of no mean order, and would certainly have daunted all but a man of determination and force. Notwithstanding all the care and attention bestowed on the preparations, it was found on arrival that many of the stores were short in quantity, poor in quality, or absent altogether. There were no immediate means of remedy, and before the second fleet arrived, the condition of the settlement must have been heartrending to Phillip. Starvation was staring the community in the face, rations were reduced to the merest pittance necessary to sustain life, the hours of labour were shortened on account of the weakness of the labourers through want of food, the convicts were bootless and almost naked, the clothes of the marines were in tatters, fish were scarce, and the hospital was full. Day by day as he sat in his office or walked around the infant town he was constantly harrowed by pitiful complaints and appeals from all classes, convict and official; but throughout he remained cheerful, hopeful and resourceful. When relief had been given to his anxieties with reference to the means of sustaining existence, he was still confronted with the want of many of the ordinary necessities of life. Being a man of few words, the actual conditions are only occasionally mentioned, but they were forcefully expressed by the brevity of his sentences, thus he states: Two or three hundred iron frying pans will be a saving of spades," I beg leave to observe that bad tools are of no kind of use". How aptly does the first quotation express the straits to which the early colonists were put for the want of ordinary cooking utensils, and the second, the knowledge that he was at the mercy of the contractors, and his unwillingness officially to accuse them of neglect. Throughout his administration Phillip exercised his powers with uniform fairness, and this on many occasions his actions were markedly the converse to those of his successors, He showed favour to no man and would not even avail himself of his private resources in the time of famine, but shared alike with the meanest of his subjects. By his action he indicated that although autocrat by appointment he was a democrat in feeling and action. Even when the stores were on private sale in 1792, Phillip did not indulge himself in the luxuries available as did many of his officers, and contented himself with the purchase of a few kegs of tripe and butter and of a few hams. Phillip’s contemporaries frequently reported most unfavorable of the settlement and of the ill doings of the convicts; he on the contrary never had his faith shaken in the future prospects of the colony, which he regarded with something akin to the feeling of a father for a child, and even for the convicts he had a good word as is shown by the statement in 1792 “ I can recollect very few crimes during the last three years but what have been committed to procure the necessaries of life.” Phillip possessed keen powers of observation. His notes on the aborigines, their life and their customs are precise; his exploration of the country and the criticism of the land passed through are indicative of good judgment, In many of his dispatches, he showed the possession of keen critical powers and a habit of probing a problem to the depths, and the expression of his opinion in brief and terse form made his conclusions clear and forceful. Governor Phillip retained the entire confidence of the English authorities throughout his administration and was the only one of the early Governors, whose actions were not called in question. In April 1790, he applied for leave of absence on account of his private affairs in England, but Lord Grenville in his reply requested him to postpone it for “your services in New South Wales are so extremely important to the public.” In March 1791, Phillip repeated the request on account of his ill-health, at the same time stating that he wished to return to the colony when he had recovered his strength. Subsequently repeated applications were made, but the English authorities were loath to lose his services; and it was considerations of health alone which compelled him to relinquish the charge of the colony in which he was so greatly interested. Governor Phillip occupies a unique position in history. No man before had been charged with the jurisdiction over half a continent and at the same time been granted so little assistance. Separated from his official superiors by a voyage of many months, he was endowed with almost absolute power with no council to assist in sharing the burden of administration. When the marines were antagonistic, when the convicts were calling for food, when his colony seemed to be on the verge of disaster, he possessed no confidant to talk with, and was truly in a position of lonely and magnificent isolation. During his government in New South Wales, Governor Phillip proved himself to be a born administrator, a brilliant organiser, a man of infinite tact and patience with a keen knowledge of his fellow-men, a man ever ready to appreciate the finer characteristics of his subordinates and loath to speak ill of anyone, a staunch friend and magnanimous foe, a perfect leader with an iron will to enforce his rule, and at the same time possessed of the true unselfishness to share all the discomforts of his inferiors. When Phillip’s character and life are fully studied, he will be recognised as the father of Australia and the best of the early Governors of New South Wales. Taken from Historical Records of Australia Vol 1 1788 - 1796 Typed by Lesley Uebel 26 January 2002 Regards Lesley Uebel mailto:ckennedy@bigpond.net.au CLAIM A CONVICT http://users.bigpond.net.au/convicts/index.html