from inanition; but still showing a native vigour which enabled them to survive the perils that surrounded them, and attain their full development in later years.
For the purpose of constitutional study in particular, the importance of such records as these cannot be overestimated. Every one who has sought to master the constitutional history of England knows how difficult it is to get any clear understanding of the origin of those institutions, legal and political, which make up what is called the English Constitution. It was not until the scholars of the present day made their laborious investigations among the records of the Saxon and the Norman period that the student was enabled to trace those institutions back through successive ages to their earliest forms; to see, for instance, the right of trial by jury, of personal liberty, of parliamentary government, of free speech, and every other right valued by Englishmen, growing out of their rude surroundings as easily as he can follow the gradual developments of vertebrate life in the collections of a museum. Great as the difference is between a colony and its parent State, there is no absurdity in comparing the constitutional growth of one with that of the other. The lapse of a hundred years has given this country a history, and the peculiar circumstances under which it has grown to its present dimensions lend an unusual interest to the examination of its successive stages — from the small military camp under Governor Phillip, to the great group of colonies in the present day.[1]
The final section of this volume contains the Bibliography of Terra Australis, New Holland, and New South Wales to the year 1820, in which many historical references of some interest will be found, as well as a catalogue of all the various publications on the subject. "Knowledge," said Dr. Johnson, "is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find
- ↑ In the course of his letter to Lord Knutaford, of the 28th February. 1889—in which he discussed the relations between the Home Government and these colonies, with particular reference to the Commission and Instructions issued to their Governors, — Chief Justice Higinbotham, of Victoria, remarked : "I have not seen a copy of an Australian Governor's Commission and Instructions of an earlier date than 1850." It is a curious fact that although Governor Phillip's Commission and Instructions form the foundation of our political system, they have never been published until the present day.
