nterprise was regarded with scarcely less suspicion: "Why," said a
celebrated critic, "we are to erect penitentiaries and prisons, at the
distance of half the diameter of the globe, and to incur the enormous
expense of feeding and transporting its inhabitants, it is extremely
difficult to discover. It is foolishly believed, that the colony of
Botany Bay unites our moral and commercial interests, and that we shall
receive, hereafter, an ample equivalent in the bales of goods, for all
the vices we export."[27] With what obstinacy an idea once mooted is
cherished, may be inferred from an opinion afterwards expressed by an
authority of still greater pretension:--"The most sanguine supporter of
New South Wales system of colonisation, will hardly promise himself any
advantage from the produce it may be able to supply."[28] Its corn and
wool, its timber and hemp, he excludes from the chances of European
commerce, and declares that the whale fishery, after repeated failures,
had been relinquished!

It is not less instructive than pleasing, to notice the past epochs of
opinion: we find consolation against the dark clouds overshadowing the
future, by discovering how many forebodings of ancient seers have
vanished before the light of the event.

These discouraging views were not, however, universal. Many
distinguished men imagined an advancement, which our age has been
sufficient to realise. To commemorate the foundation of the colony the
celebrated artist, Wedgewood, modelled, from clay brought from the
neighbourhood of Sydney, an allegorical medallion, which represented
Hope encouraging Art and Labor, under the influence of Peace.[29]

The French, however, always represented this colony as a masterpiece of
policy; an element of Anglican power, pregnant with events. Peron, when
dwelling on the moral prodigies of the settlement, declared that these
but disguised the real objects of its founders, which, however, could
not escape the discernment of statesmen: they saw the formidable germ of
great revolutions.[30]

The expedition of Baudin was connected by English politicians[31] with a
project of French colonisation. His instructions directed him to inspect
narrowly the places eligible for occupation, and it was expected that an
Australian Pondichery would become a new focus of rivalry and intrigue.
The special injunctions to survey the inlets of Van Diemen's Land,
seemed to indicate the probable site of an establishment so obnox