I am honoured with your Lordship's letter of the 19th of February in answer to mine to Lord Sydney, and beg leave to assure your Lordship that I should not hesitate a moment in giving up my private affairs to the public service; but from a complaint which so very frequently puts it out of my power to use that exercise which my situation requires and the present state of this colony, in which I believe every doubt respecting its future independency as to the necessaries of life is fully done away, I am induced to request permission to resign the Government, that I may return to England in hopes of finding that relief which this country does not afford.
I have, etc.
A. PHILLIP.
NEW SOUTH WALES CORPS
Source.—Historical Records of Australia. Vol. I, p. 122; Vol. II, pp. 573-576
The New South Wales Corps was a body of soldiers forcibly recruited to guard the convicts at Port Jackson. The soldiers quickly passed from bullying the convicts to bullying the free population, and assumed a high-handed attitude towards the Governor himself.
THE RIGHT HON. W.W. GRENVILLE TO GOVERNOR PHILLIP
Whitehall, 19th June 1789.
Sir,