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 On the 12th October, the Lords of the Admiralty informed the Home Office that 'in obedience to His Majesty's commands, we immediately ordered the Sirius, one of His Majesty's ships of the sixth rate, with a proper vessel for a tender, to be fitted for this service; and &hellip; the ship will be ready to receive men by the end of this month.'

On the same date Phillip received a short commission appointing him Governor of New South Wales, but this was afterwards replaced by a longer and more formal document.

This last commission, dated 2d April 1787, appointed Arthur Phillip, Esquire, 'to be our Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over our territory called New South Wales, extending from the Northern Cape or extremity of the coast called Gape York, in the latitude of 10 degrees 37 minutes south, to the southern extremity of the said territory of New South Wales or South Cape, in the latitude of 43 degrees 39 minutes south, and of all the country inland westward as far as the 135th degree of east longitude, reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich, including all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean, within the latitudes aforesaid, etc., etc'

A reference to the map of Australia will show that the territory which Phillip was appointed to govern included about half the continent. It was not until ten years later that Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) was proved by Bass to be an island, and