With a thousand people to govern, in the fullest meaning of the word, and a desolate country, absolutely unknown to the exiles, to begin life in, Phillip’s work was cut out.  But, more than this, the population was chiefly composed of the lowest and worst criminals of England; famine constantly stared the governor in the face, and his command was increased by a second and third fleet of prisoners; storeships, when they were sent, were wrecked; many of Phillip’s subordinates did their duty indifferently, often hindered his work, and persistently recommended the home Government to abandon the attempt to colonize.  Sum up these difficulties, remember that they were bravely and uncomplainingly overcome, and the character of Phillip’s administration can then in some measure be understood.

With the blacks the governor soon made friends, and such moments as Phillip allowed himself for leisure from the care of his own people he chiefly devoted in an endeavour to improve the state of the native race.

[Illustration:  VIEW OF THE SETTLEMENT OF SYDNEY COVE, PORT JACKSON, 20th AUGUST, 1788.  Drawn by E. Dayes from a sketch by J. Hunter.  From “An Historical Journal of Transactions at Port Jackson,” by Captain John Hunter. To face p.84.]

As soon as the exiles were landed he married up as many of his male prisoners as could be induced to take wives from the female convicts, offered them inducements to work, and swiftly punished the lazy and incorrigible—­severely, say the modern democratic writers, but all the same mildly as punishments went in those days.

When famine was upon the land he shared equally the short commons of the public stores; and when “Government House” gave a dinnerparty, officers took their own bread in their pockets that they might have something to eat.

As time went on he established farms, planned a town of wide, imposing streets (a plan afterwards departed from by his successors, to the everlasting regret of their successors), and introduced a system of land grants which has ever since formed the basis of the colony’s land laws, although politicians and lawyers have too long had their say in legislation for Phillip’s plans to be any longer recognizable or the existing laws intelligible.[B]

[Footnote B:  A leader of the Bar in New South Wales, an eminent Q.C. of the highest talent, has publicly declared (and every honest man agrees with him) that the existing land laws are unintelligible to anyone, lawyer or layman.]

The peculiar fitness of Phillip for the task imposed on him was, there is little doubt, due largely to his naval training, and no naval officer has better justified Lord Palmerston’s happily worded and well-deserved compliment to the profession, “Whenever I want a thing well done in a distant part of the world; when I want a man with a good head, a good heart, lots of pluck, and plenty of common-sense, I always send for a captain of the navy.”