Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/187

 the administration of the law, were such as only a man of ability, tact, and resolution could be expected to overcome.

Lord Sydney wrote to Sir Evan Nepean (Dec. 1790), as to the situation of "our friend Phillip." Mr. Grenville wrote earnestly to Phillip (Feb. 1791) to express his hope that he would arrange to govern "for a short time longer."

Mr. Dundas showed similar confidence in 1792. He congratulated Phillip on his excellent services, and entrusted him with uncontrolled discretion as to granting lands and assigning convict servants. But Phillip did not think himself fit to govern properly. A few days before he sailed he wrote to his friend King:—"My ill state of health obliges me to return to England." After his return a disinclination to part with his services is shown by a letter from himself to Mr. Dundas (23rd July 1793), representing that on the ground of ill-health he was compelled to ask to be "permitted to resign the government of New South Wales." To the last Dundas "lamented" the ill-health which deprived the Crown of Phillip's services. Others sought for the appointment. In Oct. 1793, Captain Hunter, late of H.M.S. Sirius, applied, and Lord Howe on the following day recommended him for it. When Phillip was consulted, he suggested (26th Oct.) his old comrade P. G. King as the person most likely to answer the intentions of the Government in the present state of the colony." But Hunter's influential supporters prevailed.

Before Phillip sailed for England he sent thither an accurate account of the land in cultivation, and it is proper to present a summary of it. At Parramatta the Crown had 316 acres cultivated, 308 of them in maize. At Toongabbe the Crown had 696, of which 511 were in maize. In private hands there were 690 acres in cultivation, mostly in maize; of the total of 1703 acres cultivated, there being no less than 1186 in maize, and 208 in wheat. The farms were at and near Parramatta, Prospect, the Ponds, the Field of Mars, and the Eastern Farms, all of which places were situated near Parramatta, or on a way leading to it from Sydney. It is interesting to observe that Phillip had planted in his Parramatta garden three acres of vines. The number of settlers was sixty-seven, but of these only one (James Ruse) began to cultivate on his own account