Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/68

Iviii AN INTRODUCTORY immediately after his arrival ; but the means put in his hands for the purpose were ludicrously inadequate. Nearly all the seed sent out proved useless for cultivation ; the agricultural tools were of the kind usually sent out for barter on the Gold Coast ; and when it came to actual operations in the field, Phillip could hardly find a man who had any knowledge of farming. The result was that^ when the salt provisions began to fail, death by starvation threatened every one in the place. They escaped that fate simply through the prudent management of Phillip, who stood to his post like a Roman sentry through years of crushing anxiety. There is another view of the matter that deserves to be con- sidered. It is hard to believe that Banks could have been blind to the folly of supposing that a settlement so formed could possibly become self-supporting after a year or two ; or so in- human as to shut his eyes to the inevitable result if it did not. Making every allowance for his confidence in the natural re- sources of the country, a moment's thought should have satisfied him that the success of the expedition was at least problematical ; if there was a fair chance of success, there was an equal risk of failure ; and in the event of any disaster overtaking it, the consequences would be fatal not only to the felons — whose fate perhaps was regarded with indifference — but to the officers and men of the military and civil establishments, with the wives and children dependent on them. Considerations of this kind could hardly fail to present themselves to a man who felt his responsi- bility for the part he had taken in the business — one who was neither a dreamer nor a theorist, nor yet a politician harassed out of his peace of mind by a public question he was wholly unable to deal with. At this point, then, one of two things may be supposed to have happened. Either he consulted the Minister in order to satisfy himself about the arrangements that were being made to ensure success ; or else he relied so implicitly on the necessary measures being adopted by the Government that he did not attempt to offer his advice at that stage. It is not difficult to imagine the result of a conversation between him and Sydney on such a topic. He would have been laughed out of his anxiety by the genial Minister, who would have assured Digitized by Google