Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/653

 COLLINS. 529^ of England/ kc He was bom on the 3rd of March, 1756, and 1756-1810 received a liberal education under the Kev. Mr. Marshall, master of the Grammar School at Exeter, where his father resided. In Ueutenant 1770 he was appointed lieutenant of marines; and in 1772 was^JJJ^**®" with the late Admiral McBride when the unfortunate Matilda, Queen of Denmark, was rescued from the dangers that awaited her by the enei^ of the British Government, and conveyed to a place of safety in the King's (her brother's) Hanoverian dominions. On that occasion he commanded the guard that received her Majesty, and had the honor of kissing her hand. In 1775, he was at the battle of Bimker's Hill, in which the first battalion of marines to At Banker's which he belonged so signally distinguished itself, having its com- ^^ manding officer, the gallant Major Pitcaime, and a great many officers and men, killed in storming the redoubt, besides a very large proportion wounded. In 1777 he was adjutant of the Chatham division, and in 1784 captain of marines ou board the captain. Courageux, of seventy-four guns, commanded by the late Lord Mulgrave, and participated in the partial action that took place with the enemy's fleet when Lord Howe relieved Gibraltar. Reduced to half-pay at the Peace of 1782, he resided at Rochester, in Kent (having previously married an American lady, who sur- vived him without issue) ; and on its being- determined to found a colony by sending convicts to Botany Bay, he was appointed Judge- Jadgre- Advocate to the intended settlement, and in that capacity sailed ^<*^°***®' with Governor Phillip in May, 1787 (who, moreover, appointed him his seci*etary) ; which situation he filled with the greatest credit to himself and advantage to the colony, until his return to England in 1797. " The history of the settlement which he soon after published, followed by a second volume — a work abounding with information Account of highly interesting, and written with the utmost simplicity — ^will ***® ooiony. be read and referred to as a book of authority as long as the colony exists whose name it bears. The appointment of Judge- Advocate, however, proved eventually injurious to his own interests. While absent he had been passed over, when it came to his turn to be put on full-pay; nor was he permitted to return to England to reclaim his rank in the corps ; nor could he ever obtain any effiactual redress. Professional but was afterwards compelled to come in as a junior captain of the p"*!^^ corps, though with his proper rank in the army. The difference this made in regard to his promotion was that he died a captain instead of a colonel commandant — ^his rank in the army being merely brevet He had then the mortification of finding that, after ten years* distinguished service in the infancy of a colony, Ten years' and to the sacrifice of every real comfort, his only reward had ^^^ ^ '**^*^* been the loss of many years' rank — a vital injury to an officer. A remark which his wounded feelings wrung from him, at the close of the second volume of his history of the settlement, appears to Digitized by Google