Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/92

 72 DESPATCHES 1780 narrative of eyents that had happened since his arrival, and a statement of tho difficulties he had encountered in the administration of affairs. He had accomplished a great task. He had brought a fleet of eleven vessels through a long and tedious voyage with very little loss of life ; he had landed nearly a thousand men at Sydney Cove without accident of any kind ; he had established settlements at Sydney, Parramatta, and Norfolk Island ; and he might reasonably have expected to receive such an acknowledgment of these services as would show that they were properly valued by the Faiatpmiso. British Government. But beyond an intimation that ''his Majesty is graciously pleased to approve of your conduct in the execution of the arduous and important service which has been conmiitted to your care/^ and a word of approval for the measures which had been taken to promote morality, there is nothing in the curt business-like communication sent by Grenville to show that the work which Phillip had done, and was doing, was appreciated, or even understood. A diB- The brief despatch contained little more than an announce- appointing letter. ment that the Guardian was about to be despatched with a supply of provisions, implements, and a few useful convicts and superintendents, that a thousand more convicts were to be sent in the autumn, and that, in the opinion of Grenville, Norfolk Island was a better place for the chief settlement than Port Jackson. But if Phillip felt disappointment at the unsympathetic nature of the despatch, it was as nothing compared with SSnf ' the discomfiture he must have experienced when he found menda^ionf ^j^^^^ while somc of the requests preferred in his letters had been attended to, the most important of his recom- mendations had been entirely ignored. One of the strongest points urged in his despatch of 9th July, written six months after his arrival, and enforced in others, was this — ^that no more convicts should be sent, at any rate not in considerable numbers, for two years at least. He did not give this advice, A warning, which was a Warning as well as a irecommendation, without