Admiral Phillip/Chapter 1
Admiral Phillip
CHAPTER I
Captain Arthur Phillip was the first Governor of the first Australian colony, and this narrative of his life is the story of the pioneers in that great Southern Continent where to-day nearly every English family has a kinsman, and where the race has already built a 'Greater Britain' across the seas.
The man who, one hundred and ten years ago, founded New South Wales is almost forgotten, yet the country now in such vigorous manhood was for the first half-dozen years of its existence a miserable starveling, and but for Phillip's tender nursing, its life would have ended in the year of its birth.
Arthur Phillip was born on 11th October 1738, in Bread Street, Allhallows, within the City of London. His father, Jacob Phillip, was a native of Frankfort, in Germany, who, having settled in England, maintained his family as a teacher of languages, although his former occupation appears to have been that of a steward. His mother was Elizabeth Breach, and Phillip's father was her second husband. Her first husband was a Captain Herbert of the Royal Navy, who was, it is said, a relative of Lord Pembroke, and it is possible that Phillip's career in the navy may have been influenced in some degree by his mother's former marriage.
Destined for the sea, he was sent at the age of thirteen to Greenwich School, in an old list of the boys of which his entrance is recorded as follows:—
'Date of admission, 24th June 1751; occupation of father, steward; name of applicant, Arthur Phillip; age, 12¾ years; date when left, 1st December 1753; period bound for, seven years; to whom bound, William Readhead; ship, Fortune, 210 tons burden, trading to Greenland.'
Evidently, however, young Phillip remained but a short time in the Fortune, for at seventeen, according to his Voyage, a work published in 1789, he was, at the commencement of hostilities in 1755, serving under Captain Michael Everet, and learning 'the rudiments of his profession under that able officer.'
Six years later, at the age of twenty-three, he was serving as lieutenant of the Stirling Castle under Sir George Pococke, one of the best officers of the period. It seems, however, that he found no opportunity of distinguishing himself in the King's service, for about 1763 he 'found leisure to marry' and to settle at Lyndhurst, in the New Forest, where he devoted himself to farming and the usual pursuits of a country gentleman. Here for some years he lived quietly, though doubtless awaiting the opportunity to again engage in an active life afloat. But finding that his own country made no call upon his services, he offered them to the kingdom of Portugal when that nation engaged in its struggle with Spain. His offer was eagerly accepted, and, as the writer of his Voyage says, such was his conduct and such his success that when the interference of France in 1778 made it his duty to relinquish his position as post-captain in the Portuguese navy and fight the enemies of his own country, 'the Portuguese Court regretted his departure, but applauded his motive.'
No precise information as to the nature of his services to Portugal is given by any of his chroniclers, but it is very probable that much of his work consisted in organising the Portuguese fleet to cope successfully with its antagonist. A decree of the King of Portugal, dated from Lisbon on 16th January 1775, and signed 'The King, Dom Joas,' and countersigned by the Marquis of Tancos, commands 'all who shall see this, my letter patent, that in view of the merits and qualifications to be found in the person of Arthur Phillip, and feeling sure that he will faithfully discharge any duties which may be entrusted to him, and also on account of the confidence which I place in him on all the aforesaid grounds: I hereby appoint him according to my good will and pleasure (as by this letter I do appoint him) post-captain of the ships of the line of my navy, in which post he will serve at my good will and pleasure; and he is to receive double the amount of pay corresponding with his rank. He will moreover enjoy all the honours, privileges, liberties, exemptions and immunities that may duly appertain to him: I therefore command Dom Joas, my dearly beloved and esteemed cousin, a member of my Councils of State and War, and Captain-General of my Royal Navy of my galleons navigating the high ocean, that after placing him in possession of his post (provided he shall have first taken the oath to faithfully discharge his duties) he will allow him to serve and discharge his respective duties. The Admiral of my Navy, as well as the chief and superior officers, shall recognise him as post-captain, and my officers, soldiers and others under his orders shall duly obey him and carry out his directions in everything concerning my service as they ought to be and are in duty bound. His aforesaid pay is to be entered and registered in the proper books, in order that it may be paid to him at the proper dates. In testimony of which I have caused this letter, which is signed by me and sealed with the great seal of my arms, to be issued.'
Upon his return to England he was, in September 1779, gazetted master and commander of the Basilisk fireship. Again, as it seems, no chance was afforded him of proving his worth; but his superiors were now evidently beginning to recognise his merits as an able and diligent officer, for on the 13th November 1781, when he was upwards of forty-three years of age, he was made post-captain of the Ariadne frigate, being transferred in December to the Europe a sixty-four. During the exciting events of 1782 he was actively employed, and in the following year he sailed with a reinforcement to the East Indies, 'where superior bravery contended against superior force, till the policy of our negotiators put an end to unequal hostilities by a necessary peace.'
Phillip, during these services abroad, appears not to have troubled himself with private correspondence. His personal friendships, if he had any, were few, and there is no record of his experiences and adventures in a stirring time, beyond the dry-as-dust and scanty official records of his movements. And it is probable, from what we know of the man's character as displayed in later years, that he would shrink from, if not abhor, talking or writing about himself even to his own relatives; in fact, during his long exile in Australia he never alludes to family ties, nor even complains of the fact that for the first two years he did not receive a letter from his wife. His officers suffered from the same anxiety as to the welfare of those they had left behind them, and that was doubtless enough for Phillip. If his subordinates liked to complain to their friends and relatives in England of the apathy of the Government in not sending even a mail to the new settlement, they could do so; he was too proud and self-contained a man to make domestic anxieties a peg on which to hang even a just grievance, and thus set an example which would have been contagious, and might have led to the disintegration and even the decay of the community.
One who met him in 1796 thus describes his personal appearance:—
'Well I remember his little figure, smothered up in his brown camlet cloak lined with green baize, his face shrivelled, and thin aquiline nose, under a large cocked hat, gathered up in a heap, his chin between his knees, sitting under the lee of the mainmast, his sharp and powerful voice exclaiming, "I cannot bear this, I am as sick as a dog!"'
This description of the man is not very impressive; but remember the situation. Phillip was seated in the stern of a small boat which was beating out of Mutton Cove, at Plymouth, in a strong squall and nasty sea, and, to tell the truth, was—as the best of sailors sometimes are—overcome with sea-sickness!
Had Phillip made enemies as did one of his successors in the Governorship of New South Wales—Bligh—this incident would, perhaps, have been made the occasion of saying that the founder of Australia was notoriously unfitted for a naval command. The military traducers of Bligh slandered his reputation by 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.