Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/248

 from such a description of people as the colony was formed of.

'But no sooner had Governor Phillip left the colony than I was convinced that the plan or measures of Government were about to undergo an entire change. The civil magistrates, within two days, received an order that their duty would in future be dispensed with, and from that time till your Excellency's arrival again in the colony, everything was conducted in a kind of military manner.

'This, I believe, was the first step toward overturning all those attempts and endeavours that had hitherto been planned and pursued for the establishment of good order to be kept up amongst the different ranks and orders of the inhabitants of the colony.

'Every order that had been given tending to promote morality and religion seemed to be laid aside, and fresh orders issued tending to banish whatever (in the opinion of a good and virtuous mind) is or ought to be the first considered and promoted (and particularly in a colony like this, where by far the major part of the inhabitants are lost to all sense of virtue, and abandoned to every species of wickedness), viz., a reverence for the Supreme Being, and a strict observance of all His just and righteous precepts.'

Surgeon Arndell in a letter on the same subject says:—

'Nothing more painful or distressing can be imagined than our situation during the