Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/106

 86. DESPATCHXS I'^W been in his mmd from the first. He had even pointed ont the way in which the goal, according to his judgment, might be most speedily attained ; and, had he chosen to do so, he might hare complained that his advice had been disregarded^ and his requests poorly, and grudgingly, responded to. But he contented himself with acknowledging the receipt of the Phillip instructions, and writing a brief sentence to record the fact that he had been economical in the expenditure of stores^ and mindful of the object which the Government had so much at heart. '' The strictest economy,'* he informed GrenviUe, " has ever been used, and every exertion has been made on my part to put the colony in the situation recommended, of the necessity of which I am fully persuaded.'^* As to the expectation Grenville had formed, that upon the receipt of the supplies sent by the Guardian and the Lady Juliana very little further aid from Great Britain would be required, he referred the Minister to his previous despatches, and declared that the colony had suffered from so many disadvantages wfflcuitioe that '^ it may rather be a matter of surprise that a regular rit^on settlement exists than that it is not in a more flourishing state.'' The wreck of the Guardian destroyed at a blow the fabric which Grenville had reared in his mind, and Phillip's despatches must have convinced him that he had been altogether too sanguine in his expectations. Even if the Guardian had come safely into port instead of striking an iceberg, those expectations, founded on the merest conjecture, could not possibly have been realised* TheMiOTiy The colony would not have been "thrown back," to use been still a long way from the situation in which the British Government desired to see it. This vessel had proved a disappointment in more ways than one. In his first set of despatches Phillip had begged that superintendents might be sent out to overlook the convicts, and instruct them in the cultivation of the land, and that if convicts were sent
 * »<*•" Phillip's expression, as was the case, but it would have
 * Historical Beoords, toL i, part 2, p. 351.