The ceremony was not imposing, but it was on a par with the rest of the proceedings. The governor, Capt. Phillip, wound it up with a speech in which, in spite of grammatical errors which may be pardoned in a sailor, he displayed considerable ability and eloquence, but a marvellous absence of common sense. In the course of a somewhat inflated panegyric on England and her fortunes, his excellency went on to portray his native country as the peculiar favorite of heaven, and to ascribe her successful colonization of New Holland—a matter considered by anticipation as already accomplished, and that, too, in the teeth of the recent defection of her most splendid colonies on the plea of tyrannical misgovernment—to a prolonged special intervention of Divine Providence.
“Nor did our good genius desert us,”continued the governor, “when we reached our destination. On the contrary, it was then that her(?) crowning favor was bestowed. Witness the magnificent harbor which before us extends its hundred beautiful bays. Witness the beautiful landscape, the islands, capes, and headlands, covered with waving foliage, rich and varied beyond compare. Witness every surrounding object which, as regards a situation for our future homes, our necessities could demand or our tastes desire. Happy the nation whose enterprises are thus favored by the elements and by fortune! Happy the men engaged in an enterprise so favored! Happy the state to whose founding such propitious omens are granted!”
It is clear from the following passage, incredible as it may appear, that the government of the day did really contemplate founding a new state beyond the seas out of the criminal population, the moral refuse of society. Gov. Phillip even challenges for the scheme the praise of magnanimity.
“The American colonies,” he said in his inaugural address, “smarting under what they considered a sense of injustice, had recourse to the sword, and the ancient state and the young dependency met in deadly conflict. The victory belonged to the American people, and Britain, resigning the North America continent (?) to the dominion of her full-grown offspring, magnanimously seeks in other parts of the earth a region where she may lay the foundations of another colonial empire, which one day will rival in strength, but we hope not in disobedience, that which she has so recently lost” (Flanagan, vol. i. p. 30).
It is, however, remarkable that Mr. Flanagan grounds his own attribution of magnanimity on the absence of those very features of the new territory on whose conspicuous presence the governor, standing on the spot, congratulates his fellow-colonists, as one of the signs of a special interposition of Providence in their favor.
“To incur vast expense,” writes the author of the History of New South Wales, “encounter great dangers, and overcome great difficulties, in order to possess and colonize a country more remote than any hitherto brought under subjection by Europeans—a country presenting no pre-eminent attractions in soil, destitute, so far as was then known, of the precious metals, and inhabited by a people in the greatest degree barbarous and devoid of all riches—while countries possessing all those attractions which New Holland wanted were within her reach, is the best evidence which can possibly be afforded of national magnanimity” (Flanagan, vol. i. p. 2).
“How grand is the prospect which lies before the youthful nation!” exclaimed the enthusiastic governor to the new colony in his inaugurative speech. “Enough of honor for any state would it be to occupy the first position, both in regard to time and influence, in a country so vast, so beautiful, so fertile, so blessed in climate, so rich in all those bounties [pg 656]which nature can confer; ... its fertile plains tempting only the slightest labor of the husbandman to produce in abundance the fairest and the richest fruits; its interminable pastures, the future home of flocks and herds innumerable; its mineral wealth, already known to be so great as to promise that it may yet rival those treasures which fiction loves to describe—enough for any nation, I say, would it be to enjoy those honors and those advantages; but others not less advantageous, but perhaps more honorable, await the people of the state of which we are the founders.”
“To these,” continued the governor, addressing that engaging instalment of British civilization which the imperial government had sent forth from the shores of their country to take possession, in its name, of this new land, and develop its abundant resources, “will belong the surpassing honor of having introduced permanently the Christian religion and European civilization into the southern hemisphere. At no distant date it will be theirs to plant the standard of the cross and the ensign of their country in the centre of numerous populous nations to whom both these have hitherto been but little known. Such are the objects which will arouse the enterprise and stimulate the energies of the people of this young country—enterprise and energy, directed not toward conquest or rapine, chiefly because Australia, rich beyond measure in her own possessions, cannot desire those of others, but towards the extension of commerce, the spread of the English language, the promotion of the arts and sciences, and the extension of the true faith. Such are the circumstances and conditions which lead to the conviction that this state, of which to-day we lay the foundation, will, ere many generations have passed away, become the centre of the southern hemisphere—the brightest gem of the Southern Ocean” (Flanagan, vol. i. pp. 32, 33).
Were these, then, whom Capt. Phillip addressed the men to introduce the Christian religion and European civilization in a newly-discovered continent? Were a detachment of jail-birds and their keepers to “develop commerce, spread the English language, promote the arts and sciences, and extend the true faith?” Were such as these the missionaries to plant the standard of the cross, or even that of their own country, amidst populations alien to both alike? Did the English government seriously propose to make a missionary college out of a reformatory, if such it could be called? Were the Barabbases of England to be the pioneers of civilization, the Artful Dodgers of the metropolis the heralds of the Christian faith?
The truth is that the only object directly provided for by the government to which England was indebted for this “magnanimous” deed of colonization was the establishment of a secure and distant depot for the worst criminals of the country.