Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/59

 SKETCH. xUx posals made for relieving their distress^ it was suggested in 1788 by an Englishman named Matra that some of them should be settled at Botany Bay. He drew up an outline of his ideas on the subject, enlisted the support of Sir Joseph Banks^ and formally submitted his plan to the Government. Looking at his proposals in the present day, there need be no hesitation in saying that if the Government had adopted thein as they stood and carried them out in a manner worthy of the country, it would have formed the most statesmanlike achievement in the history of Pitt's administration. But the temper of the age did not favour colonising experi- ments in which the colonists were to be free agents, while the expenditure was to be met by the public Treasury. Nothing of that kind, at any rate, would go down with the Ministry. The Home Office, which had charge of all matters relating to the colonies, was then presided over by Lord Sydney — ^a politician better known among his contemporaries by the familiar name of Tommy Townshend. His genius was not accustomed to the work of evolving original conceptions, or even of revolving old ones, when they happened to be rather more comprehensive than usual. He was one of those light-hearted politicians who habitually look upon politics as things of the present hour, and who frame their measures in the same happy state of mind in which they pull on their gloves or pull ofE their boots — to suit their convenience at the time. So that when the enthusiastic Matra approached his lordship with his new and original scheme for founding a great colony with the American loyalists, the only encourage- ment he obtained was a remark that New South Wales might be a very proper place for the convicts under sentence of trans- portation. Matra no doubt felt the chill which every great originator has been doomed to feel, as soon as the project warmed by the fire of genius has been brought into contact with the cold surface of practical politics. There the matter rested for two years, and might have rested for many years more, had it not been taken up by another enthusiast. Sir George Young; but although he combined a high position in the navy with a good deal of private and official d ' ' '' digitized by Google