M. de la Perouse sailed into the
harbour by Captain Cook's chart of Botany Bay, which lay before him on
the binnacle; and we had the pleasure of hearing him more than once pay a
tribute to our great circumnavigator's memory, by acknowledging the
accuracy of his nautical observations.
The governor, with a party of marines, and some artificers selected from
among the seamen of the _Sirius_ and the convicts, arrived in Port
Jackson, and anchored off the mouth of the cove intended for the
settlement on the evening of the 25th; and in the course of the following
day sufficient ground was cleared for encamping the officer's guard and
the convicts who had been landed in the morning. The spot chosen for this
purpose was at the head of the cove, near the run of fresh water, which
stole silently along through a very thick wood, the stillness of which
had then, for the first time since the creation, been interrupted by the
rude sound of the labourer's axe, and the downfall of its ancient
inhabitants; a stillness and tranquillity which from that day were to
give place to the voice of labour, the confusion of camps and towns, and
'the busy hum of its new possessors.' That these did not bring with them,
'Minds not to be changed by time or place,' was fervently to have been
wished; and if it were possible, that on taking possession of Nature, as
we had thus done, in her simplest, purest garb, we might not sully that
purity by the introduction of vice, profaneness, and immorality.
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