A fleet of eleven sail was assembled at Portsmouth in March, 1783, for the formation of the proposed settlement on the coast of New Holland.

On board of these vessels were embarked 600 male, and 250 female convicts, with a guard consisting of about 200 soldiers, with their proper officers.  Forty women, wives of the marines, were also permitted to accompany their husbands, together with their children.

Captain Arthur Phillip, an officer highly qualified in every respect for the arduous undertaking, was appointed governor of the proposed colony.

The little fleet which was thus placed under the command of Captain Phillip, and which has ever since been designated by the colonists “the first fleet,” set sail from Portsmouth on the 13th of May 1787, and arrived at Botany Bay, in New South Wales, in January 1788, after a long, but comparatively prosperous voyage of eight months and upwards.

Captain Phillip soon found, to his disappointment, that Botany Bay was by no means an eligible harbour; nor was it, in other respects, suitable for the establishment of a colony, and he determined, even before any number of the convicts had been permitted to land, to search for a more eligible site.

In Captain Cook’s chart of the coast, another opening had been laid down, a few miles to the northward of Botany Bay, on the authority of a seaman of the name of Jackson, who had seen it from the foretop-mast-head; and Captain Cook, conceiving it to be nothing more than a harbour for boats, which it was not worth his while to examine, called it Port Jackson.

It is no wonder that Captain Cook came to this conclusion; for no opening of any kind can be perceived till you come close in with the land.

This opening Captain Phillip examined, and the result of that examination was the splendid discovery of Port Jackson,—­one of the finest harbours, whether for extent or security, in the world.

To this harbour the fleet was immediately removed, and the settlement was ultimately formed at the head of Sydney Cove, one of the numerous and romantic inlets of Port Jackson.

The labour and patience required, and the difficulties which the first settlers must have had to encounter, are incalculable; but their success has been complete.

The forest has been cleared away, the corn-field and the orchard have supplanted the wild grass and the bush, and towns and villages have arisen as if by magic.  You may hear the lowing of herds where, a few years before, you would have trembled at the wild whoop of the savage, and the stillness of that once solitary shore is broken by the sound of wheels and the busy hum of commerce.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVII.

PARLEY DESCRIBES THE INHABITANTS, VEGETABLES, AND ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA.

The natives of this part of Australia are, beyond comparison, the most barbarous on the surface of the globe.