t until a
generation later, and to Sir Joseph Banks more than to any other man
belongs the credit of the suggestion. In 1779 a commission of the House of
Commons was appointed to inquire into the question of transportation,
then, in consequence of the loss of the American colonies, an important
problem needing a speedy solution. At this period, indeed up to a much
later time, the English prison administration was notoriously bad. The
gaols were crowded and filthy, and there was no discipline; no system
governed them other than the system of rascality practised by many of the
gaolers.

Mr. Banks (as he then was) gave evidence before the House of Commons, and
strongly urged the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay, giving
his opinion, of course, as the botanist who had accompanied Cook and had
seen what prospect there was of establishing a settlement at New Holland.
Banks from this time till his death took a keen interest in the New South
Wales colonizing scheme, and had much influence for good in the future of
the colony. He was a man of independent means, and there is not the
slightest reason nor the least evidence to the contrary, to doubt his
perfect disinterestedness in all that he did. But when President of the
Royal Society the caricaturists and the satirists had little mercy on him,
believing him more courtier than scientist. Peter Pindar's _Sir Joseph
Banks and the Emperor of Morocco_ is only one of the many satires of which
Banks was the principal victim.

The proposals of one Jean Maria Matra and of Admiral Sir George Young for
forming new colonies to take the places of those lost to us in America,
with the evidence and subsequent advocacy of Banks, ultimately led to the
Government's decision to colonize New South Wales. But it was not until
1786 that that decision was reached, and a year later still when Captain
Arthur Phillip was given a commission as captain of the expedition and
governor of the new colony.

All that is known of Phillip prior to his appointment is contained in a
semi--official account of the expedition called _Phillip's Voyage,_
published about a hundred years ago. We are here told that his father was
a German teacher of languages who settled in London, his mother the widow
of Captain Herbert, of the royal navy, and that young Phillip was born in
Bread Street, in the parish of All Hallows, London.

It may be presumed that, by the influence of his mother's connections
through her