Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/173

 A HUKDRED YEARS AGO. 76 public by reason of their bitter experience in North America, 1787 it is difficult to find a reasonable explanation of the profound indifference with which the Expedition of 1787 was regarded in political circles. It did not occur to the most far-sighted statesmen of the day that a new empire might date its his- Anew tory from the day on which Commodore Phillip's fleet should *™'* furl its sails in Botany Bay. There was no Canning to rise in the House of Commons and declare that he had called into existence a new world in order to redress the balance of the old. If we turn to the political history of the time, in order to ascertain the momentous questions which ab- sorbed the attention of Parliament, there is nothing that can be placed in comparison, as a matter of historical im- portance, with the colonisation of New South Wales. The great subjects of parliamentary discussion at that time QuestionB have all faded more or less into oblivion ; even the speeches ° * *^' of the most renowned orators of the day awake but a lan- guid interest in the reader. Perhaps no questions gave rise to greater excitement in political and social circles during the year 1787 than those which turned on the rumoured marriage of the Prince of Wales — afterwards George the The Prince Fourth — with Mrs. Pitzherbert, and the payment of his and Mn. Royal Highnesses debts. Public interest became intense when Fox made his celebrated declaration on ''direct authority,^* that the alleged marriage ''not only never could have happened legally, but never did happen in any way whatever." This sensation, however, had hardly subsided than another took its place, when it became known that the marriage had really happened after all, and that the great orator had been painfully duped by his princely friend. Such were the absorbing topics of discussion in the month of April, 1787 ; now, they barely deserve a place in the his- tory of the nation. During Phillip's last days in England warren before the departure of the Fleet, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan "*^ were addressing the House from day to day on " the articles of charge against Mr. Hastings." On the 10th of May, Digitized by Google