of them had forfeited their lives to the justice of their
country, yet by the lenity of its laws they were now so
placed that by industry and good behaviour they might
regain the advantages they had forfeited. They were now
far from temptation. There was little to plunder, and
amongst so small a community detection was certain.
He could hold out no hope of mercy to the guilty, nor
indeed to any offenders. What mercy could do for them
they had already experienced; nor could any good be now
expected from those whom neither past warnings nor the
peculiarities of their present situation could preserve from
guilt." While offenders would be rigorously dealt with,
good conduct would be rewarded. The tendency to profligacy he denounced as injurious to the settlement, and he
promised countenance and assistance to those who, by
contracting marriages, would manifest a desire "to conform
to the laws of morality and religion."
The first public English speech on Australian soil was received with acclamation, and in the following week the Governor might feel the satisfaction of success, inasmuch as fourteen marriages then took place among the convicts.[1] In May, 1788, Phillip wrote: "The very small proportion of females makes the sending out an additional number absolutely necessary, for I am certain that your lordship will think that to send for women from the islands in our present situation would answer no other purpose than that of bringing them to pine away a few years in misery."
It is equally necessary and interesting to glance at the component parts of the new colony thus established. One thousand and thirty persons are said to have been landed, but this number differs from that stated in the return dated 15th April, 1787. Ten were civil officers; the military, including officers, were 212; accompanying the military there were wives and children, and other free persons considerably raised the free population. Deaths at
- ↑ "In a despatch from the commissary at Sydney to Lt. Governor King at Norfolk Island, 5th June, 1789, the following droll passage occurs: "The convicts who are married here -I never alter their names. There would be no end to it. The names they were convicted by in England are the names they should go by here."
