Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/99

 NEW SOUTH WALES. Among the various documents relating to New South Wales i788 preserved in the Public Record Office in London, there are Propoais ... 'or coloni»- two remarkable papers in which the writers submitted their insr New ^ ^ ^ ^ SouthWalcs. views to the Government of the day for the colonisation of the territory discovered by Captain Cook. Looking at them in the light of contemporary history, it will be seen that they form distinct links in the chain connecting the expedition of 1787 to Botany Bay with the great historical events of preceding years. The first of these papers, which bears date August 23rd, 1783, was written by a gentleman named James Maria Matra, who, though now wholly unknoMm, J. m. Matn.. appears from his correspondence to have been a man of some note in the political world of his time. He ia entitled to the credit of having made the first formal proposal for the colonisation of New South Wales; and there is little doubt that, although the project he submitted to the G overn- ment — the Coalition Government of Fox and Lord North was then in power — was not adopted in its original form, on^n of the- the ultimate scheme carried out by the Pitt Ministry was on787. ^"^ elaborated from the materials which he had put together. Prom a letter addressed by Matra to Evan Nepean,* the Under Secretary for the Home Department, in October, connected with the expedition to Botany Bay, and the subsequent colonisa- tion of New South Wales. His name was given by Governor Phillip to the river Nepean on its discovery in 1 789. He was Under Secretary when George Digitized by' Google
 * Nepean's name ia frequently met with in the official correspondence