Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/471

 A GOOD YEAR'S WORK, 357 The interval was a weary one for men whose associations 1788 were wholly with the country they had left behind them, and who had not yet learned to look upon a home in the Home-sicic. new world as a compensation for their loss. But, never- theless, as the year drew to its close, there was more than one event on which Phillip could look back with satisf ac- Reaeoiw for tion. He had brought out the Fleet in safety and with tion. more success than could have been expected; he had founded his colony on the shores of the finest harbour in the world ; he had established peaceful relations with the native inhabitants of the country, even if he had not recon- ciled them to the prospect of being dispossessed of their hunting-grounds. The most serious diflBculty he had to The great contend with was the want of good land for farming pur- poses ; but that difficulty had at last been disposed of by the settlements at Rose Hill and Norfolk Island. The scarcity of such land in the immediate neighbourhood compensft- of the Camp seemed at first a heavy drawback, if not a great calamity ; but probably time and experience led him to see the great moral advantages which indirectly resulted from it. When the settlements at those places had been formed, they enabled him to draft off large numbers of the Diatributon people who otherwise would have been massed together at jLo'pie. head-quarters ; by that means preventing the evils which would inevitably have resulted from an overcrowded Camp, in which sickness was always prevalent so long as the population was fed almost exclusively on salt provisions. The establishment at Norfolk Island was doubly useful; for not only did the land yield a rich return for the labour bestowed npon it, and thus support a comparatively large number of people, but it afforded Phillip a means of carry- Apiacofor ing out his favorite theory of punishment in serious cases- exile from the colony. Looking at the rich and beautiful country on the western shores of Botany Bay, as it appears in the present day, it js not easy at first sight to understand the difficulty experienced K'^ ""^^^^"^ by GooqIc Of" THl X O UNIVEKSirY