of course,
supposed to be part of the main continent. He was ordered to land at
Botany Bay and there form the settlement, but was given a discretionary
power to change the site, if he considered it unsuitable.

[Illustration: A VIEW OF BOTANY BAY. From an engraving from a drawing by
R. Cleveley, in "The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay" [London,
1789].]

Recognizing the unsuitability of Botany Bay, Phillip, before all the ships
of the first fleet were arrived, set out in an [Sidenote: 1788]
open boat to explore the coast; and so, sailing northward, entered that
bay only mentioned by Cook in the words before quoted, "abrest of an open
bay," and by Hawkesworth (writing in the first person as Cook) thus:--

"At this time" (noon May 6th, 1770) "we were between two and three
miles from the land and abrest of a good bay or harbour, in which
there appeared to be a good anchorage, and which I called Port
Jackson."

Perhaps, when Phillip's boat passed between the north and south heads of
Port Jackson, he exclaimed what has so often been repeated since: "What a
magnificent harbour!" And so on the 26th January, 1788, Sydney was founded
upon the shores of the most beautiful bay in the world.

Phillip's "eye for ground" told him that the shores of Port Jackson were a
better site for a settlement than the land near Botany Bay, but he had no
sooner landed his people than the need for better soil than Sydney
afforded was apparent. Then began a series of land expeditions into the
interior, in which, with such poor means as these pioneers possessed, the
country was penetrated right to the foot of the Blue Mountains. The first
governor, despite the slight foothold he had established at Sydney--little
better such a home than the deck of a ship--persistently searched for good
land, and before his five years of office had expired agricultural
settlement was fairly under way.

On the seaboard, although he was almost without vessels (scarcely a decent
open boat could be mustered among the possessions of the colonists), with
the boats of the _Sirius_ the coast was searched by Phillip in person as
well as by his junior officers.

Major Ross, who commanded the Marines, and who was also
lieutenant-governor, described the settlement thus:--

"In the whole world there is not a worse country than what we have
yet seen of this. All that is contiguous to us is so very barren
and forbidding, that