Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/591

 CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS. 467 Next in rank to the Annual Register stood the Gentleman's The o^nUe- Magazine, originally published in 1731, and still in existence as a Magazine, monthly. It did not approve of the Expedition; and in the number for October, 1 786, the following comments appeared in it : — A plan is said to be formed, and now actually carrying into execTition, for settling a new colony at Botany Bay, in New Holland, at which place Lieutenant Cook, in 1770, made some stay to repair his ship and refresh his men. As the ostensible design of the pro- jectors is to prepare a settlement for the reception of felons, no place, in the opinion of paany, can be more improper for that Objections purpose than Botany Bay, to which it is impossible they can be ai^**°^ transported at any moderate expense, nor supported, when they arrive, without a miracle. The eastern coast of New Holland is, perhaps, the most barren, least inhabited, and worst cultivated country in the southern hemisphere ; and Botany Bay is at too great a distance from any European settlement to receive either .succour or friendly assistance. The establishment is said to con- sist of a Post-Captain, a Governor, with a salary of £500 a year ; a Master and Commander, a Lieutenant-Governor, with £300 a year ; four captains, twelve subalterns, twelve sergeants, and one hundred and sixty rank and file from the marines, a surgeon, chaplain, adjutant, and quarter-master. The whole equipment — army, navy, and felons — are to be supplied with two years* pro- visions and all sorts of implements for the culture of the earth and hunting and fishing ; and some light buildings are to be run up immediately, till a proper fort and town-house are erected. If this report is true, the expense will be equal to that of an expedi- An extrava- tion to the South Sea against an enemy ; and if it is to be con- s*^**^^**^**®' tinned with every freight of felons, it will annihilate the surplus that is intended for augmenting the fund appropriated for the payment of the national debt. It is certainly a most extravagant scheme, and probably will be reconsidered. In the November number of the Magazine, a letter from a correspondent quotes several passages from Cook's Voyage from 28 April to 5 May, 1770, describing the barren nature of the land and Pro and con. the "bloodthirsty" disposition of the aborigines. Another corre- spondent replied in the December number, stating the great care that to his knowledge was then being taken to provide for the comfort of the convicts, and expressing a hope that " this colony may one day flourish and be respectable." Among the contemporaries of the Gentleman's Magazine and the Annual Register, the Monthly Review — founded in 1749, an^ The Monthly regularly published until 1844 — ^held a prominent place ; but the only reference to the Expedition to be found in its pages (voL Ixxv., Digitized by VjOOQIC