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In future chapters we shall go more particularly into the early life of the colony and see how the problems that harassed Phillip's administration continued long after he had returned to England; we shall then see how immeasurably the first governor was superior to the men who followed him.
With a thousand people to govern, in the fullest meaning of the word, and a desolate country, absolutely unknown to the exiles, to begin life in, Phillip's work was cut out.
Phillip, like Cook, did his work well and truly, and his true memorial is the country of which he was practically the founder. Admiral Phillip's work was, as we have said, the founding of Australia; that of Hunter is mainly important for the service he did under Phillip.
In reading of his work we learn something of the man himself; and of all Phillip's subordinates in the beginning of things Australian, he, and he alone, was the friend of his cold, reserved chief. Philip Gidley King was twenty years younger than Phillip, and was thirty years of age when he, in 1786, joined the Sirius as second lieutenant.
When the boat was gone off with the girl, our party returned to the governor's house, several of the native men and boys joining them, as well as Bannelong; and, after some time, when his passion began to subside, Governor Phillip gave him to understand, that he was exceedingly angry with him for attempting to kill a woman, and tried to divert him from his purpose by threats, telling him that if he did kill her, or even beat her any more, he should lose his life; but threats had no greater effect than entreaties, and all his answers showed that he thought himself greatly injured by having his victim taken from him; saying that she was his, that her father was the man who had wounded him over the eye, that all their tribe were bad, and that the governor should see he would kill her; and when the judge-advocate reasoned with him, and told him that if he killed the girl the governor would kill him, he marked with his finger those parts of the head, breast, and arms, where he said he would wound her, before he cut her head off: in this resolution he went away, and the girl was removed in the evening from the Supply to Governor Phillip's house, where a young man who lived with Bannelong desired to remain with her, and, from the tenderness he showed her when Bannelong was not present, was supposed to be her husband; though he had not dared to open his lips, or even to look dissatisfied, when her life was in danger.
Colebe's wife brought her child to Governor Phillip's house a few days after it was born, and as it was a female, both the father and mother had been repeatedly told, that if the finger was to be cut off, the governor wished to see the operation.
On the way out the fleet called at Teneriffe, at Rio, and at the Cape to refresh; and Phillip's old friends, the Portuguese, gave him a hearty welcome and much assistance at the Brazils. When the ships reached Botany Bay in January, 1788, the voyage of thirty-six weeks had ended without serious misfortune of any kind.
At Governor Phillip's approach, the boy ran away, and the man did not appear perfectly at his ease when he saw four or five persons near him, though none of them were armed.
In the Fourth Reader there were seventeen selections from the Bible; William Wirt's "Description of the Blind Preacher;" Phillip's "Character of Napoleon Bonaparte;" Bacon's "Essay on Studies;" Nott's "Speech on the Death of Alexander Hamilton;" Addison's "Westminster Abbey;" Irving's "Alhambra;" Rogers's "Genevra;" Willis's "Parrhasius;" Montgomery's "Make Way for Liberty;" two extracts from Milton and two from Shakespeare, and no less than fourteen selections from the writings of the men and women who lectured before the College of Teachers in Cincinnati.
Phillip, in short, found himself by degrees involved in a whirl of festivities, and was never at a loss where to go for amusement when he could obtain leave to seek relaxation. If such social adulation made him a little vain, if it led to the purchase of a twenty-five-guinea dressing-case, and to frequent consultations with the tailor, it really was not Phillip's fault.
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