General Collins, at the battle at Bunker's Hill, and thus
witnessed an event accepted by exulting Europe as a signal that British
sway over that region was lost. It was the lot of Collins to proclaim
the dominion of Great Britain at the inauguration of Phillip, and thus
announced the first day of a second and not less valuable empire.

Such incidents teach us that a single life may embrace events beyond the
scope of imagination. We are reminded of the most brilliant passage in
the oratory of Burke, delivered while the authority of the crown was
trembling in the balance of fate. When illustrating how far the
realities of the future might exceed the visions of the present moment,
he stated that a venerable nobleman, Lord Bathurst, could remember when
American interests were a little speck, but which during his life had
grown to greater consequence than all the commercial achievements of
Great Britain in seventeen hundred years. "Fortunate man," he exclaimed,
"he has lived to see it: fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing
which will vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day."[39]

Collins was favorably known to the public by his _Account of the English
Colony in New South Wales_: his work was distinguished by the reviewers,
amidst a crowd of publications, as superior to them all.[40] The
stateliness of his style, and the pomp with which he ushers trivial
events, were less apparent when the topics were new. In the last page
he, however, complains that he had spent nine years in the colonial
service, which intercepted the honors of his profession; a case of
hardship, he remarks, everywhere admitted, both by those who could
compensate, and those who could only condole.

In his dedication to Lord Hobart, the principal secretary of state, he
drops the tone of complaint and disappointment: he tells that nobleman
that his private virtues were rendered more conspicuous by the splendour
of his talents as a statesman, and that praise could not be interpreted
as flattery, when devoted to a name which commanded the veneration of
the world. Remonstrances so skilfully advanced could not be unnoticed:
Collins was at once raised to the rank of colonel, and the intelligence
with which he delineated the proper objects and agents of penal
government, exalted him still higher. He dated his dedication in 1802,
and embarked the following year as governor of the settlement it had
been resolved to form.

FOOTNOTES:

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