Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/357

 OF SYDNEY COVE. 247 record of events dates only to November, 1788, and does vm not travel beyond the limits of an ordinary jonmal. It con- tains a good deal of information, however, not to be found in the pages of his contemporaries, and is consequently entitled to a permanent place in our historical collections. The good reception which his little Narrative seems to Tench's have met with naturally induced Captain Tench to follow S^^ it up with a rather more ambitious effort, which appeared in 1793 — the same year in which Captain Hunter's book was published. In his later work — entitled '' A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson " — ^Tench gave the " transactions of the colony " year by year as he had noted them in his journal, followed by extracts from his '^travelling diaries " relating to his exploring expeditions ; TraveUing the rest of the book being occupied with miscellaneous re- "" marks on the climate, the soil and its productions, and the natives. His pages may be read without any sensation of weariness, being full of anecdote and character. The un- healthy society which surrounded the author did not depress his mind to such an extent as to render him insensible or indifferent to better things. He seems to have kept up his spirits in spite of it, and to have written with a light heart; graphically, too, like an artist sketching the scenes around him with pencil and brush. The result is that his reader Pen and ink has a succession of pictures passing before him, which serve to illustrate the chronicle of events. In this respect Tench stands alone among his contemporaries. Although he had no talent for sketching, like Hunter, his work is essentially picturesque. The difference between his method and theirs may be seen in the fact that there is hardly a line in the bulky volumes they produced that can be said to give the reader any idea of Phillip as a man. There is no attempt to phiuip's outline his character in any way, either directly or indirectly. ^ Not a word, for instance, of the many conversations which he had with the captain of the Sirius and the Judge- Advocate is preserved in their pages. It is consequently difficult to form any clear idea as to Phillip's individuality from all Digitized by Google