Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/29

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ADMIRAL PHILLIP
7

asserting that he tried to hide himself under his bed when the officers of the infamous New South Wales Corps deposed him.

Phillip was forty-eight years of age when he began the work which entitles him to an honoured place among the Builders of Greater Britain. Up to the year 1786, notwithstanding that the Portuguese Court had expressed a high appreciation of the services rendered to their nation by the British officer, his naval career is scarcely worth remembering. His opportunities for winning distinction with his sword were few, and if he had had them, it is likely that he would have only done well where men with less brains and more dash would have done brilliantly. This book contains nothing but the story of half a dozen years of the man's life; yet in those six years he founded Australia.