Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/76

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52
BUILDERS OF GREATER BRITAIN

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 honours and those advantages, but others, not less advantageous, but perhaps more honourable, await the people of the state of which we are the founders.'

Collins, Tench, White, and the author of the semi-official publication, Phillip's Voyage, all supply full accounts of the ceremony, and young Southwell gives in one of his letters what appears to be a verbatim report of Phillip's speech:—

'On the 26th of January' (still observed as a public holiday in the colony), 'the day after the arrival of the ships from Botany Bay, the Union Jack was hoisted at the head of Sydney Cove, the marines saluted and fired three volleys, and the Governor, the centre of a little group of officers, proposed the toasts of "The King and the royal family," and "Success to the new colony."'

On the 7th February, everyone belonging to the settlement having been landed from the ships, the colonists to the number of 1030 were all assembled, the convicts seated in a half circle, the marines paraded in front of them, and the officers in a group in the centre. Then Collins, the Judge-Advocate, read the Governor's commission, the other officers' commissions, the Act establishing the colony and the rest of the formal documents, the marines fired three volleys, and silence was commanded.