INTRODUCTION. THE opening pages of this volume are devoted to the concluding months of Philip Gidley King's governorship. Influenced, no doubt, by the knowledge that his successor, Captain William Bligh, of the Royal Navy, was on his way to the colony, King declined to commit himself to any important act of administration. The many years of service which King had seen in the colony, and the peculiarly trying circumstances under which he acted as Governor, call for more than passing notice. His experiences, before his appointment as Governor, have been dealt with in previous volumes. He assumed control of the colony at a time when the gravest abuses were at their height. His predecessors had virtually to deal only with convicts and their guards, to whom the regulations of a regiment for these, or a prison for those, could be applied; but when the convicts became free men, either by servitude or emancipation, they formed, with the free settlers who had arrived from England and the discharged soldiers, a new and important element in the population of the colony. They claimed all the rights of free-born Englishmen; and, in doing so, appear to have come into constant conflict with the civil power. It is to this fact that the difficulties which Governor King met at every step are to be attributed. These difficulties, in reality, were identical with those which overwhelmed Bligh; and they were sufficiently acute to force King to request permission to return to England. After well nigh twenty years of active and arduous service in New South Wales, King returned to England in 1807 a poor man, broken alike in health and pocket. Of his life during the few months which followed his arrival in England we know little or nothing, beyond the fact that he was confined almost continuously to his bed, and finally succumbed on 3rd September, 1808, a few days before the news of Bligh's arrest was received in England. It is doubtful if any Governor of New South Wales had greater difficulties to contend with than Governor King. He proved himself an able, fearless, and upright administrator; and had the British Government given him a fuller share of countenance and support, nothing seems more certain than that the military officers and traders would never have attained the ascendancy which ended in the arrest of Governor Bligh. The stone which marks King's grave, near the old parish church of St. Nicholas, Tooting, London, is still in a good state of preservation. It bears the following inscription : HERE LYETH THE BODY OF PHILIP GIDLEY KING, CAPTAIN, R.N., AND LATE GOVERNOR OF HIS MAJESTY'S TERRITORY, DIED SEPT. 3RD, AGED 49 YEARS. In this volume many evidences will be found of the active interest taken in the colony by Sir Joseph Banks. On pp. 16-19 is printed a long letter from him to the Secretary of the Admiralty, giving an account of the labours of Robert Brown and Ferdinand Bauer, who had accompanied Flinders in the circumnavigation of Australia. Banks states that, independently of seeds, &c., which Brown had sent to England from time to time during the course of the voyage, the collection which he had brought Home under his own personal supervision numbered approximately 3,600 specimens. He also brought a great number of insects, bird-skins, and minerals. The artist, Bauer, had not been less industrious than Brown. His sketches of plants and animals were beyond Banks's most sanguine expectations, and numbered over 2,000; of these but a very few have ever seen the light. Sir Joseph proposed :1. That Brown and Bauer should prepare the results of their researches for publication, continuing to draw the salaries* which they had been paid while absent with Flinders. Banks undertook if this was agreed to, to overlook and direct the progress of the work. "To quicken them if they are dilatory, to assist them when it is in my power, and to report to their Lordships (the Admiralty) the progress made by each in his respective department once a year at least, or oftener if required so to do." * Brown received £420, and Bauer £315 per annum. |