Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/171

 73 ENGLAND A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. The fact that Phfllip's expedition attracted very little public i787 attention in England is one of the most striking circum- stances connected with it. Measured by its results, it may be said to have been one of the greatest events in English indiflegi« history during the eighteenth century, just as Sir Walter dition. BaleigVs attempts to colonise North America formed one of the greatest events of the sixteenth; but few except Phillip seem to have formed any conception of its real im- portance. The Ministers who organised it and carried it into execution introduced it to the notice of Parliament simply as a plan for the disposal of felons and the relief of gaols. No one in the House of Commons had much to say about it. Lord Sydney claimed no credit for it. Pitt never made any reference to it. Burke, whose sympathy conciliation with the American colonists had been so strongly moved for America, many years previously, and who, beyond all his contempo- raries, had learned to appreciate the importance of the colonies, was silent upon the subject. He touched the skirts of it, so to speak, in 1785, when he pleaded for some merci- ful consideration towards the unfortunate people who were then awaiting transportation, crowded together in the gaols to the number of 100,000. The swampy coasts of Africa Penaisettie- were then supposed to be their destination. It was under- AWoan stood that the Government had some design of establishing convict settlements in that part of the world, notwithstand- ing its known unheal thiness ; and probably Burke's protest against any such project, which he pronounced inhuman. Digitized by Google