Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/162

 134 THE DISPOSAL OF 1790 Instractions tlOnS. impntctio itble at Norfolk " Town- ships '* and "towns.** Use of the terms. like Phillip, he had been obliged to depart from his instnic- He did not do away with the reserves altogether, but in order to make room for the settlers, for whom he had been instructed to make provision, he was obliged to greatly reduce the area of the intermediate spaces. The command given to the Governor to lay out '^ town- ships^^ and ^^ towns " in proximity to the coast was made apparently in ignorance of the conditions prevailing at the settlement, although Phillip's despatches had disclosed plainly enough the nature of the adjacent country. The word " township" was used in the Instructions in a different sense from that which custom has given it in these Colonies. Centres of population are cities or towns'; places of lesser importance, which elsewhere would be called villages or hamlets, are townships; in other words, a township is a small town. But the "townships" contemplated by the Additional Instructions were something different; they signi- fied areas or districts which were to be devoted to agricul- tural purposes, of which the town, with its public buildings, was to be the head-quarters or centre. It was intended, AgricuitunJ apparently, that these townships or agricultural areas should be laid out in contiguous blocks, each having its town ; and in that manner settlement was to spread over the country. Little attention had been given to Phillip's despatches, or this mistaken notion would not have been embodied in a set of Instructions with which the Governor was enjoined to give exact compliance. The fact was, as the accounts which had reached the Government from its representative showed, • " When I arrived here I foand eight seamen and two marines belonging to the Sirius were already settled, and agreeable to QoTemoT PhiJHp's instructions to Major Ross (the then Commandant of the Island) there was left a space of fifty rods in front for the use of the Crown between each settler. On the Deputy-Surveyor's representing to me that if the same measure- ment was observed in settling the other marines who came with me and who followed in the Queen there would not be sufficient ground for half of them, I undertook to give directions that the intermediate spaces shoiild be only twenty rods, by which means they are all well settled along the runs of water. I beg, sir, to observe that nothing but the very great inconvenience which I foresaw would occur could have induced me to nave taken this step."