reater part
subject to penal control--could not, unassociated with the present,
detain attention for a moment. The discipline which prevailed in Van
Diemen's Land, and the results which it produced, will be hereafter
related to illustrate transportation; for who would load the colonial
fame with details, from which the eyes of mankind turn with natural
disgust, or blend them with the fabric of Tasmanian history?

The first Governor-in-chief of Van Diemen's Land, the third of New South
Wales, was Philip Gidley King, son of Philip King, a draper, of
Launceston, Cornwall, England. At twelve years of age he entered the
royal navy: by Admiral Byron he was made lieutenant, and holding that
rank in the _Sirius_, he attended the expedition of Phillip in
1788.[38] He was employed to establish the settlement of Norfolk
Island, where his proceedings, recorded in his official journal, and
afterwards published in various forms, afforded great amusement and
satisfaction. There he united in his person, for some time, the priest
and the ruler: he experienced during his residence, most of the
anxieties and difficulties incident to such stations, and detailed them
with curious minuteness. As a cultivator he was energetic and
persevering; but the rats devoured his seed, or torrents washed it away:
or a tropical hurricane, which tore up huge trees, overthrew the frail
buildings he reared. His people conspired to seize his government; he
detected, and forgave them: yet he was not scrupulous in his methods of
punishment. A woman he repeatedly flogged, for stealing the provisions
of her neighbours. He, however, saw the little settlement gradually
improve: it became the favorite residence of the officers; and, as the
climate was better understood, the fertility of the soil yielded a
surpassing abundance.

King was not inattentive to his own interest, and became the owner of
considerable stock. Anecdotes of his humour circulate through the
colonies: being asked by a settler to find him a man to perform certain
work, he took him into his room and pointed him to a mirror. Again, when
a marine was the suitor for some favour, in rejecting his petition he
put him through his exercises, which ended in _quick march_. He had the
frankness of the sailor, and neither aspired to state nor exacted
homage.

David Collins, Esq., long judge advocate of New South Wales, was the
first Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land. He was present with his
father,