Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/18

 AbrMch of official PHILLIP AND BOSS. 1789 in a manner that would have satisfied anyone whose judg- ment was not warped by jealousy and pride. The cir- cumstances out of which they arose were as follows : — Phillip, on the morning of Saturday, 22nd August, 1789, directed Captain Collins, who acted as his secretary as well as Judge- Advocate, to communicate certain instructions to an officer who was superintending some works at Sydney Cove. Collins forgot all about the order until the following Monday, when he carried it into effect. In the interval, Phillip had gone to Bose Hill, and Boss was in charge at Sydney,by virtue of his Commission as Lieutenant-Governor. According to official etiquette, instructions intended to be etiquette, exocutod during the Governor's absence should have been given through the Lieutenant-Governor ; and because this rule was not observed, Ross made a formal complaint to the Governor, declaring that an insult had been offered to him, ''in my character of Lieutenant-Governor." The matter was fully explained by both Phillip and Collins ; and thfe incident, which was not worth a moment's attention, might well have been allowed to drop. Boss having revived it, Phillip was induced to give an explanation to Nepean, and at the same time to take notice of other points which he had passed over in his correspondence with Boss. In his letters to the Major he kept as nearly as possible to the subject in hand, refraining from allusions of a personal nature. Boss, on the contrary, was nothing if not personal. He prefaced his complaint about the Judge-Advocate with an ill-con- cealed sneer : — stfttasofthe "It would be presumption in the extreme in me to suppose Lieutenant-, , _ Oorernor. your Excellency not to know that when either duty, business, or pleasure may at any time induce your Excellency to absent your- self from this Cove, there cannot then rAnain in it any authority superior to that of the Lieutenant-Governor."* toinuition. ^^'^ might havo been intended as an insinuation that Phillip had gone to Bose Hill on a pleasure excursion, • Hiatorical Beoords, yoh i, part 2, p. 262.