[Head of Governor Phillip]
[Vignette in title page--for an explanation see the Preface]
[View of Botany Bay]
[Yellow Gum Plant]
[View in Port Jackson]
[Caspian Tern]
[Natives of Botany Bay]
[Chart of Norfolk Island]
[Lieutenant King]
[Hut in New South Wales]
[The Kanguroo]
[View in New South Wales]
[Sketch of Sydney Cove]
[Axe, Basket, and Sword]
[Plan of Port Jackson]
[Spotted Opossum]
[Vulpine Opossum]
[Flying Squirrel]
[Blue-bellied Parrot]
[Tabuan Parrot]
[Pennantian Parrot]
[Pacific Parrakeet]
[Sacred Kings-fisher]
[Male Superb Warbler]
[Female Superb Warbler]
[Norfolk Island Petrel]
[Bronze-winged Pigeon]
[White-fronted Heron]
[Wattled Bee-eater]
[Psittaceous Hornbill]
[Skeleton of the Head of the Kanguroo and Vulpine Opossum]
[Map and View of Lord Howe Island]
[Ball's Pyramid]
[Lieutenant Shortland]
[Chart of the Track of the Alexander]
[Shortland's Chart of New Georgia]
[Curtis's Isles]
[Macaulay's Isles]
[Track of the Scarborough]
[A Canoe, etc. Mulgrave's Range]
[Bankian Cockatoo]
[Red Shouldered Parrakeet]
[New Holland Goat-sucker]
[New Holland Cassowary]
[White Gallinule]
[Dog of New South Wales]
[Martin Cat]
[Kanguroo Rat]
[Laced Lizard]
[Fish of New South Wales]
[Fish of New South Wales]
[Port Jackson Shark]
[Watt's Shark]
[Great brown Kingsfisher]
[Black flying Opossum]
Chapter I.
Public utility of voyages--Peculiar circumstances of this--New Holland properly a continent--Reasons for fixing our settlement there--Transportation to America, its origin, advantages, and cessation--Experiments made--The present plan adopted--Disadvantages of other expedients.
From voyages undertaken expressly for the purpose of discovery, the public naturally looks for information of various kinds: and it is a fact which we cannot but contemplate with pleasure, that by the excellent publications subsequent to such enterprises, very considerable additions have been made, during the present reign, to our general knowledge of the globe, of the various tribes by which it is peopled, and of the animals and vegetables to which it gives support.
An expedition occasioned by motives of legislative policy, carried on by public authority, and concluded by a fixed establishment in a country very remote, not only excites an unusual interest concerning the fate of those sent out, but promises to lead us to some points of knowledge which, by the former mode, however judiciously employed, could not have been attained. A transient visit to the coast of a great continent cannot, in the nature of things, produce a complete information respecting its inhabitants, productions, soil, or climate: all which when contemplated by resident observers, in every possible circumstance of variation, though they should be viewed with less philosophical acuteness, must yet gradually become more fully known: Errors, sometimes inseparable from hasty observation, will then be corrected by infallible experience; and many objects will present themselves to view, which before had escaped notice, or had happened to be so situated that they could not be observed.
The full discovery of the extent of New Holland, by our illustrious navigator, Capt. Cook, has formed a singular epocha in geography; a doubt having arisen from it, whether to a land of such magnitude the name of island or that of continent may more properly be applied. To this question it may be answered, that though the etymology of the word island,* and of others synonymous to it, points out only a land surrounded by the sea, or by any water, (in which sense the term is applicable even to the largest portions of the habitable globe) yet it is certain that, in the usual acceptation, an island is conceived to signify a land of only moderate extent, surrounded by the sea.** To define at what point of magnitude precisely, a country so situated shall begin to be a continent, could not answer any purpose of utility; but the best and clearest rule for removing the doubt appears to be the following: As long as the peculiar advantages of an insular situation can be enjoyed by the inhabitants of such a country, let it have the title of an island; when it exceeds those limits let it be considered as a continent. Now the first and principal advantage of an island, is that of being capable of a convenient union under one government, and of deriving thence a security from all external attacks, except by sea. In lands of very great magnitude such an union is difficult, if not impracticable, and a distinction founded on this circumstance, is therefore sufficient for convenience at least, if*** not for speculative accuracy. If we suppose this extent to be something about one thousand miles each way, without, however, affecting much rigour in the limitation, the claim of New Holland to be called a continent, will be indisputable: The greatest extent of that vast country being, from East to West, about two thousand four hundred English miles, and, from North to South, not less than two thousand three hundred.****
[* Insula, from which island is derived, is formed from in sulo, in the sea; and, the corresponding word in Greek, is usually deduced from to swim, as appearing, and probably having been originally supposed to swim in the sea.]
[** Thus when Dionysius Periegetes considers the whole ancient world as surrounded by the sea, he calls it, an immense island; on which Eustathius remarks, that the addition of the epithet immense was necessary, otherwise the expression would have been low and inadequate.]