Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/249

 period. The departure of Governor Phillip from the colony was soon followed by a surprising change in the management of civil affairs: for the security of good order and public peace were in a moment almost annihilated, and a torrent of licentiousness bore everything civil and sacred before it. Whatever was injurious or disgraceful to human nature might have been reasonably expected from general drunkenness; yet general and habitual drunkenness absolutely became the unfortunate fashion of the times: the consequence was that crimes of every sort increased to an alarming degree: thefts and robberies became so numerous that they were spoken of as mere matters of course, and even rapes and murders were not infrequent. The respect due to superiors, and the subordination so essential to the welfare of civil society, seemed banished from the minds of the unthinking multitude, and that to such a degree that no one could think himself safe in passing from one part of the town to another. Among several insults I have myself met with, a soldier accosted me one evening in the road at Parramatta and insisted on my spending a bottle with him. Upon saying that I would see him home to his barracks he told me he would spare me that trouble by knocking me down, which he would certainly have done at the moment if he had not been prevented by a person who joined us at the time.'