266 PHILLIFS 1783 left matters to take their own course. But on two points 7 February, he felt Compelled to legislate. One of his first public Phillip's orders was directed to the prevention of disease. Another legislation. ^^^ subsequently framed for the purpose of correcting a curious notion which had got abroad on the subject of marriage. .It was commonly believed that the ceremony performed in the colony was not valid, and that husbands could throw off the conjugal tie at their pleasure when leaving the country. Phillip therefore ordered that " none Deserted should be permitted to quit the colony who had wives or children incapable of maintaining themselves, and likely to become burdensome to the settlement, until they had found sujfficient security for the maintenance of such wives or children as long as they might remain after them."* It was in this matter that the first fruits of the Government policy began to show themselves. The exclusion of free settlers was, in fact, the exclusion of morality itself. Apart from that, the necessity for equalising the sexes on such an occasion should have been obvious ; but not only was that matter disregarded — the proportion between males and females being nearly four to one — but the women sent out were mostly, according to Phillip, 'Wery abandoned wretches.'^ The result was beyond any power to control. First Phillip began his first despatch to Lord Sydneyt by re- ferring to his departure from the Cape, and his arrange- ments for arriving early at the scene of operations in Botany Bay:— Departure I ^^d the honor of informing your lordship by Captain Cox, (Si>B.'^*' ^^^ ^^ returning to Europe from Madras, that I was ready to sail from the Cape of Good Hope, and which I did, with the ships under my command, the 12th of November. Phillip The 25th, being eighty leagues to the eastward of the Cape, I s^hw.***^ left the Sirius and went on board the Supply, tender, in hopes,
- Collins, pp. 26, 159.
t Phillip's despatches were addressed to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the colonies not being at that time specially represented in the Government. Post, p. 549. Digitized by Google
