London -1786, October 12: ‘To Captain Arthur Phillip; ‘reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage, and experience in military affairs, do, by these presents constitute and appoint you to be Governor of our territory called New South Wales…from the northern extremity…called Cape York…to the southern extremity…South Cape’. Court of St. James, By Command, His Majesty’s [George III] – 12 October 1786, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1
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‘Four [4] companies of marines landed [1788] with the first Europeans…Twenty five [25 regiments of British infantry served in the colonies between 1790 and 1870…[they] participated in the great struggle at the heart of the European conquest of this continent’. Dr. Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, the British Army n Australia, Kangaroo Press, 1964
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Sydney Cove – 12 December, 1790: ‘At headquarters…the governor pitched up me [Tench] to execute the…command…those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay…put ten [10] to death…bring in the heads of the slain [and] two [2] prisoners.
I am resolved to execute [them] in the most public and exemplary manner in the presence of as many of their countrymen as can be collected……and my fixed determination to repeat it whenever any future breach of good conduct on their side, shall render it necessary’. His Excellency Governor Arthur Phillip, Orders to Marine Captain Watkin Tench. Governor Phillip, cited Tench, Sydney’s First Four Years, ed. L.F. Fitzhardinge, Angus and Robertson, 1961
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‘Military and police raids against dissenting Aboriginal groups lasted from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries…These raids had commenced by December 1790‘. Professor Bruce Kercher, History of Law in Australia, Allen and Unwin, 1995.
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United Kingdom – 3 April 1889: Privy Council Cooper V Stuart [1889] 14 AC, Lord Watson, Lord Fitzgerald, Lord Hobhouse, Lord MacNaghton, Sir William Grove ruled ‘it [New South Wales] was peacefully annexed to the British Dominion’. Professor Bruce Kercher, An Unruly Child, History of Law in Australia, Allen and Unwin, 1995
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Portsmouth – May 1787: Captain Arthur Phillip RN, commander of a large expeditionary force of eleven (11) ships, known in Britain and Australia as the ‘First Fleet’ sailed from Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787 bound for the invasion of New Holland now Australia.
New Holland – 18/20 January 1788: All ‘First Fleet’ vessels, after eight (8) months voyaging 13,000 miles (21,000 km) of ‘imperfectly explored oceans’ by way of Spanish Tenerife, Portuguese Rio and Dutch Cape Town, were safely at anchor in Botany Bay.
Botany Bay: HMS Supply, smaller of the two (2) king’s ships with Phillip aboard, was first to arrive. He immediately assessed Botany Bay, ‘so very wide open’ -difficult to defend unsuitable therefore for permanent settlement.
21 January: Next morning, armed with Captain James Cook’s charts from April 1770, he set out with Captain Hunter commander of the fleet’s flagship HMS Sirius with surveyors to investigate the surrounding country-side.
Port Jackson: Later that day, nine (9) miles (14km) north of the initial beachhead, one (1) of the group’s (3) cutters came across Cook’s notation, an entry ‘a quarter mile across’ into Port Jackson’.
‘Here’ Phillip wrote ‘a Thousand Ships of the Line may ride in perfect security’.
22 January: The following day the English rowed around its vast harbour. From a myriad inlets and bays hep chose a ‘snug’ deep-water cove; ‘so close to the shore that at very small expense quays may be made in which the largest ships may unload’.
Sydney Cove: Phillip ‘honoured’ [it] with the name Sydney’. See: Botany Bay , Lord Sydney , Arthur Phillip & ‘Christopher Robin’ Mark 2
23 January: ‘We returned to Botany Bay on the third day’ with news. The ‘First Fleet’ had found a home. ‘It was determined the evacuation of Botany Bay should commence the next morning’. Tench. ibid.
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Botany Bay – 24 January: Next morning at t first light two (2) French ships – La Boussole and L’Astrolabe appeared in the entrance to Botany Bay and were refused entry.
Jean Francois La Perouse the French commander may have held firm in the face of Sirius’ cannon but gale-force winds threatened disaster forcing his ships back out to sea.
‘Alarmed’ Phillip ordered ‘a party to be sent to Point Sutherland to raise English colours …[and] stipulated that the move to Port Jackson be kept secret, and that no one was to go on board the French ships’. John Moore, First Fleet Marines 1788-1792, Queensland University Press, 1989
‘Consternation’ : While at Port Jackson Phillip had failed to raise ‘English Colours’
25 January: Next morning at dawn in heavy sea-mist HMS Supply with Phillip aboard attempted to slip unseen from Botany Bay. But wind ‘blowing too strong’ held up departure until well after mid-day. Just on dark Supply made Sydney Cove.
‘When Phillip planted the flag at Sydney Cove in 1788 he was not claiming the land for the British to take it away from the Aboriginal people but to make sure the French did not make the claim first. (Jean Francois de Galaup, Comte de La Perouse, was hanging around on an expedition with two ships)’. Larissa Behrendt, The Honest History Book, ed. David Stephens & Alison Broinowski, NewSouth Books, 2017
26 January: Next morning the whole party rowed ashore. A flagstaff was erected and Governor Phillip raised the Union Jack. See: New Holland – Britain By A Short Half-Head
‘Raising the flag was one of the acts recognised [in international law] as an assertion of a prior claim against other colonial powers eyeing off the same land’. Behrendt. op.cit.
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‘A firing part of marines formed up and fired a feu de joie in between the volleys of which toasts were drunk to His Majesty King George III, the royal family, and success to the new colony…in which manner was Australia founded’. Marine Captain David Collins, cited Moore.
Botany Bay – 26 January: Meantime the seas had abated somewhat. Despite ‘great Seas rolling into the Bay’ Captain Hunter RN responded to the urgency of putting distance between the French and English.
Crammed with excited, terrified prisoners and soldiers, Charlotte, Prince of Wales and Lady Penrhyn, cut across each other and very nearly ended ended up on the rocks.
Sydney Cove: Just before sunset on the 26th the entire English fleet were moored in; ‘the finest harbour in the world’. See: A Riddle – When Was An Invasion Fleet Not An Invasion Fleet ? When It Was the First Fleet
‘There would seem to be ‘some justification for the saying that England won Australia by six days’. Edward Jenks, History of Australian Colonies, cited Hugh E. Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy, The Period of Trade Ascendancy, Methuen, 1928
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‘Owing to the multiplicity of pressing business necessary to be performed immediately after landing, it was found impossible to read the public commissions and take possession of the colony in form until the 7th of February’. Tench. ibid.
The following ten (10) days were spent in frenzied activity. Trees were felled. One, selected for a gallows, stood between the military and convict lines. A parade ground was levelled, fire-pits dug and his and hers latrines carefully placed.
6 February: ‘Between 6am and 6 pm‘ the two hundred and thirty-one (231) women of the First Fleet were rowed ashore. The inaugural ‘sexual orgy’ is said to have taken place that night. See: Brokeback Mountain
7 February, 1788: Proclamation Day; without consent of its Eora Peoples or entering into treaty with them, Captain-General, Governor Arthur Phillip RN ‘using a form of words’, proclaimed British sovereignty over the island continent of New Holland, now Australia, on the 7th of February 1788.
‘At the close three vollies were fired in honour of the occasion, and the battalion marched back to their parade, where they were received by the Governor, who was received with all the honours due to his rank’. Tench. ibid.
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South Head – 1790: ‘Here on the summit of the hill, every morning from day-light , till the sun sunk, did we sweep the horizon, in hope of seeing a sail. At every fleeting speck which arose from the bosom of the sea the heart bounded, and the telescope was lifted to the eye’. Tench. ibid
Not until June 1790 would the ‘horror and misery’ of complete isolation, creeping starvation, excruciating uncertainty, be broken by Lady Juliana – ‘London on her stern’ with two hundred and twenty-six (226) women prisoners. See: Abandoned and Left to Starve January 1788 to June 1790
Governor Arthur Phillip’s five (5) years tenure (1788-1792) as Governor of New South Wales were marked by callous abandonment.
THE BACK STORY
Jamaica – 1731: John Herbert, Elizabeth Breach’s first husband, a king’s man of the Royal Navy, died at Port Royal Jamaica while serving on HMS Tartar. Yellow Fever most probably the cause of death.
England – 1737: Elizabeth married scholarly Jacob Phillip a ‘[German] teacher of languages’. Their daughter Rebekka was born at Bread Street, within the sounds of ‘Bow Bells’ St. Mary- le- Bow.
1738: Arthur was born on 11 October 1738 and baptised at All Hallows Anglican Church. Brother and sister grew up among the noisy hustle and bustle of Cheapside’s market-place.
It seems highly likely Elizabeth’s first husband’s connection to the Royal Navy and Phillip’s Christian baptism enabled his admittance into the Greenwich Hospital School for Seamen
1751: Aged fourteen (14) he began two and a half (2 ½) years of highly disciplined formal education studying every facet of seamanship.
1753: Phillip graduated in 1753 and began a seven-year apprenticeship at sea.
Arctic Circle – 1754: The Spring of 1754 was spent as cabin boy on Fortune an Arctic whaler. The next posting to the Mediterranean was no doubt a more pleasant experience, or perhaps not.
A mariner’s greatest enemies were heat, chronic shortage of fresh food, limited amounts of fresh water, exhaustion, brutality, vermin and lice. At sea for long periods many more sailors died of illness, typhus, malaria and yellow fever than cannon fire.
Historians such as Billy Smith in, Ship of Death: A Voyage that Changed the Atlantic World, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2013 – referring to Yellow Fever – hone in on lack of fresh drinking water as responsible for an ever increasing mortality.
1754 – North America: Phillip saw action for the first time while engaged in naval skirmishes between France and Britain.
These morphed into what is said to be the world’s first global warfare, the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), and a placement on HMS Buckingham. Rats infested ships, lice spread typhus, mosquitoes carried malaria and yellow fever while scurvy decimated crews.
1756 – Havana: During the Royal Navy’s blockade of Havana he stayed on station for an extended period. It is believed Phillip’s well documented ill-health sprang from severe privations related to scarcity of fresh water.
‘The war ended in 1763 with France losing Canada to the British Empire, while Spain ceded its dominance over the Gulf of Mexico by ceding Florida to Britain’. Ferreiro, Introduction, American Revolution, A World War, ed. David K. Allison & Larrie D. Ferreiro, First Vintage Books, edition 2017
1763 – Paris: The Seven Years’ War ended formally with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Peace-time saw Phillip, along with many fellow naval officers, relegated to the reserve list on half-pay.
In the middle of 1763 Arthur Phillip married Charlotte Denison a wealthy widow and moved to Hampshire. The marriage was not a success. The couple divorced in 1769.
We do know Arthur Phillip’s career as a gentleman-farmer at Lyndhurst in Hampshire’s New Forest shaped his thinking on the best way to introduce and maintain European-style agriculture to New Holland.
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‘During Lord Sydney’s time as secretary of state, the Home Office was a clearing office. Its jurisdiction included overseeing of naval officers involved in trade regulation, secret service and special projects. As a result Sydney crossed paths with three men who left their mark on history – Horotio Nelson, William Bligh and Arthur Phillip’. Andrew Tink, Lord Sydney [the live and time of Tommy Townshend], 2011
While a serving naval officer Phillip met and impressed many influential people including Augustus Hervey Commander of HMS Stirling Castle.
London 1769: Shortly after his divorce Phillip became a spook’. It is thought Hervey, by then a peace-time Admiral, recruited the talented Phillip into Britain’s Foreign Secret Service – present day MI 6.
Arthur Phillip fluent in French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese was thoroughly trained in the art of espionage. Language skills, allied to his appearance, made him an exceptional, almost invisible spy.
‘…his [Phillip[‘s] failure to invite the French commander there [Port Jackson] reflect some fear that he might be known as a spy’. Alan Frost, Arthur Phillip His Voyaging, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1987
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‘Evan Nepean received ‘an astonishing promotion’ when Lord Shellburne appointed him as under-secretary of state to the Home Office during which time he began to specialize in intelligence’. Roger Knight, The Pursuit of Victory, Life and Times of Horotio Nelson, Allen Lane, London, 2005
Evan Nepean, a former naval officer, now a hard-working under-secretary at the Home Office, specialised in espionage.
Phillip’s salary and expenses were paid through Evan Nepean. He can best be described as Phillip’s ‘handler’.
France – 1773: Arthur Phillip spent all of 1773 spying in France reporting to the Admiralty on the disposition and ordnance of the French navy.
Spain – 1774: When Phillip returned to England from France in 1774 world events took a hand. Long-standing rivalry between Spain and Portugal threatened to ignite.
Portugal, Britain’s oldest ally, certain Spain would soon move against her, approached the Admiralty for assistance.
The British Government saw an opportunity for both commercial and strategic advantage. Lieutenant Arthur Phillip RN was among a number of experienced naval officers seconded by the Admiralty to serve in the Portuguese Navy.
Lisbon – 1774: By the end of 1774 Phillip had arrived in Lisbon where he took command of the Belem. His duties included transporting four hundred (400) Portuguese convicts from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
En-route to Rio scurvy threatened to overwhelm Belem’s crew. When there were insufficient sailors to work the vessel Phillip offered clemency to those prisoners prepared to lend a hand.
Brazil – 1775, April: With Phillip at the helm Belem reached Rio in early April 1775. True to his word Phillip advocated on behalf of helpful convicts. All received pardons and were rewarded with grants of land.
It is thought Governor Phillip’s undoubted abhorrence of slavery may have sprung from witnessing savage brutality meted out to slaves working Brazil’s fabled gold and diamond mines.
Brazil: During this lengthy stay in Brazil, 1775 to 1780, Phillip made friends in high places. Connections that proved vital when years later, August to September 1787 en-route to Botany Bay, Phillip re-provisioned the ‘First Fleet’ at Rio.
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Rio de Janeiro – 1787, 3 September: It is there we find him on the 4th of September 1787, the day before the ‘First Fleet’ left Brazil for Cape Town, supplying Nepean with real-time intelligence.
‘Dear Nepean, this is my last letter, as I hope to sail tomorrow. You know how much I was interested in the intended [failed] expedition against Monte Video [1782-3] and that it was said that the Spaniards had more troops than I supposed’. Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1
Phillip’s interest in ‘[Spanish] Monte Video’ sprang from the fact, in 1782 at the behest of Lord Sydney, he had drawn up ‘secret’ plans for ‘the intended expedition’. See: Monte Video, Lord Sydney, Arthur Phillip & ‘Hush’- Christopher Robin – Mark 1
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Brazil: Phillip spent much of his earlier time ( 1775-80) charting South American coast-lines, exploring the Brazilian country-side and perfecting his Portuguese. But he never took an eye off the main game – spying.
He charted the coastline for future reference and was able to provide Lord Sandwich, a fellow linguist at the Admiralty, with comprehensive analysis of South American naval strengths and Spain’s defensive weaknesses.
Lexington – 1775, April: However Phillip’s thirst for active service at sea never waned. Soon after war between Britain and her American colonists broke out at Lexington on 19 April 1775 he requested but was refused permission to rejoin the Royal Navy.
; unless we declare openly for Independence there is no chance for foreign aid….John Washington to [his uncle] George Washington’. Ferreiro. ibid.
Even though Britain stood alone without imperial allies, there was little chance without ‘foreign aid’ General George Washington’s rag-tag rebel militia, could defeat Britain in a war.
On the 4th of July 1776 Britain’s ’13 middle middle colonies’ declared themselves; ‘free and independent states absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the crown and parliament of Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence assured the assistance of France and Spain’. Ferreiro. op.cit.
Following the Declaration massive amounts of French men, money, munitions, military know-how together with the French navy mobilised in support of America’s rebellious Patriots commanded by George Washington.
In 1778 France formally declared war on Britain. In 1779 Spain followed and too lent material support to the revolutionaries.
Phillip, was increasingly anxious to take a sea-going role in the expanded American War. He returned to England and in 1780 given command of Ariadne, a small 24 gun frigate.
Portsmouth – 1783 January: By 1783 he was Captain of HMS Europa equipped with 64 guns. One of four (4) vessels Phillip sailed Europa from Portsmouth in January 1783 to attack Spanish possessions at Monte Video and Buenos Aires.
The raid was called off when the squadron’s overall commander, Sir Robert Kingsmill HMS Elizabeth 74 guns, learned Britain and Spain had agreed terms of a peace settlement.
Bay of Biscay -1783: Phillip’s orders were then to sail onto India. But Europa caught in a fierce hurricane sustained severe damage to her planking and rigging.
Rio – April 15: In desperate need of repair Phillip made for Brazil. While waiting off Rio for a favourable wind to take him to shore a volley of shot raked Europa’s bow.
In not offering up Europa , a warship flying a foreign flag, for search Phillip had committed a serious breach of protocol. Nevertheless he demanded an apology and got it. Ruffled feathers were settled and old friendships renewed and strengthened.
The episode informed Phillip’s future behaviour. In August 1787 when the ‘First Fleet’ put into Rio de Janeiro for provisions he went so far as to script interviews to be used by his officers in their dealings with Rio’s port officials.
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India – 1783, 5 May: Once repaired Europa put to sea with Phillip setting course for India.
Madras – 1783, 18 July: Europa’s rushed repairs at Rio only just held. In mid July 1783 she limped into Madras.
Paris – 1783 – 3 September: The Treaty of Versailles (Paris) signed in September 1783 brought an official end to America’s Revolutionary War of Independence.
Britain lost her ‘New World’– ’empire in the west’. With it went much prestige and promise of immense wealth.
Cape of Good Hope – 1783, 2 October: Phillip departed Madras at the beginning of October for Cape Town where a more complex fit-out could be undertaken at the extensive naval facilities there.
Cape Town – 1783, December: In desperate need of re-caulking Phillip docked a leaky HMS Europa at Table Bay at the end of December 1783.
England – 1784, April: Europa docked at Britain’s Spithead naval base on 22nd April 1784 with his ship intact. In so doing Phillip avoided what every Royal Naval Commander dreaded; a court-martial that inevitably followed the loss of a king’s ship.
Peace, again Arthur Phillip found himself on half-pay. He resumed his espionage work with Evan Nepean.
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BRITAIN, FRANCE, SPAIN & THE RACE FOR NEW HOLLAND
France – 1784: Louis XVI, like King George III his English counterpart, had a deep interest in science, geography, as well as trade and empire building.
France buoyed by her success in the American conflict, sought to regain territories lost in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and expand her strategic and trading influences.
The French king greatly admired the Royal Navy’s Captain James Cook. With support from his naval advisers, in particular Antoine de Bougainville, the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe, he planned a naval expedition to the Arctic, South Pacific and Southern Oceans.
Whitehall: Modelled on Cook’s voyages it was projected to take three (3) years. When news of the proposed French expedition under command of Comte Jean-Francois La Perouse reached the Admiralty it set off alarm bells in Whitehall.
If, as suspected, the voyage was to include New Holland, claimed for Britain by Captain Cook in 1770, French occupation of New Holland would, under Euro-centric international law, would render Britain’s ‘discovery‘ claim null and void.
France – 1785 – January: At the beginning of 1785 Phillip went to France ‘on holiday’. In reality he spent most of 1785; ‘surveying, making observation of French ports’.
His arrival in Toulon in January 1785 coincided with the selection of La Perouse to lead Louis XVI’s expedition.
Brest – 1785 – August: Phillip, a silent witness hidden in deep shadow, watched as La Perouse in La Boussole and the equally competent Paul-Antoine, Viscount de Langle Captain of L’Astrolabe, work a difficult passage out of Brest Harbour.
England – 1786: Phillip returned to England fully informed of La Perouse’s mission. He was able to assure government, although New Holland was definitely in the mix, it was not the French expedition’s only objective.
Britain still had time to invade and occupy New Holland thereby consolidating Cook’s tenuous ‘discovery’ claim to that territory.
Whitehall – 1786 – August: At the ceremonial opening of Parliament in August 1786 King George III announced; ‘it advisable to fix upon Botany Bay’.
Admiralty -1786, August: Hot on the heels of a failed attempt to assassinate King George an unsigned ‘Heads of a Plan for effectually disposing of convicts [and] the establishment of a colony in New South Wales [with] two [2] companies of marines to form a military establishment’ was circulated to the Navy Board.
Brazil – 1786: ‘While in the Brazils’ keeping track of La Perouse – La Boussole and de Langle – L’Astrolabe, Phillip was told of his selection to command a very ‘special project’ the invasion and occupation of New Holland.
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‘New Holland is a blind, then, when we want to add to the military strength of India. I need not enlarge on the benefit of stationing a large body of troops in New South Wales’. Anon. Letter to Evan Nepean, Under-Secretary Home Office, 1789, Historical Records of New South Wales’.
With New Holland Britain would gain supremacy over the southern oceans and secure alternate sea-routes to India, China, Africa and Spanish and Portuguese South America.
‘The combination of French and Spanish naval power had proven fatal for Britain in the American War [1775-1783]…as Lord Sandwich admitted frankly’. Lord Sandwich cited R.J. King, the Secret History of the Convict Colony, Sydney, 1990
Within five (5) years of invading New Holland, Britain embarked on twenty-five (25) years of global warfare, the French and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815.
The strategic importance, of New Holland as a jumping off point for India, Africa and South America was the reason Britain established a permanent naval and military presence at Sydney.. Proximity not Distance Drove Britain’s invasion of New Holland.
Sydney – 1792, 11 December: An ailing Governor Phillip, after five (5) extraordinary years of adversity departed Sydney for home in the Atlantic.
Rio – 1793, February: He was at Rio de Janeiro when France declared war on Britain on the 3rd of February.1793.
London – 1793, May: By the middle of May 1793 Phillip was back in England. On resigning his Governorship of New South Wales Phillip recommended Lieutenant Phillip Gidley King RN as his successor but was ignored.
During the first interregnum – December 1792 until the arrival of Governor John Hunter in September 1795 – absolute military rule prevailed in New South Wales.
Twenty five [25] regiments of British infantry served in the colonies between 1790 and 1870…They fought in one of the most prolonged frontier wars in the history of the British empire, and for the first half of their stay were probably more frequently in action than the garrison of any other colony besides that of southern Africa’. Stanley, The Remote Garrison. ibid.
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‘The Privy Council was the highest judicial body in the British empire and decided in this case [Cooper V Stuart 1889] that New South Wales; ‘consisted of a tract of territory practically unoccupied without settled inhabitants or settled laws at the time when it was peacefully annexed to the British dominions. Bruce Kercher, op.cit
Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales representing the Crown, King George IV (1820-1830) held absolute power In the colony. In 1823 Brisbane made a grant of land, seemingly with strings attached, to William Hutchinson a non-Aboriginal.
Over time the land passed to a successor – Cooper- who refused to ‘relinquish’ the land. 1889, in the last decade of Queen Victoria’s long reign, the to and fro ended with referral to the United Kingdom’s Privy Council.
Australia’s High Court has yet to address the Council’s ruling, the lands of Australia’s First Nations’ Peoples were ‘peacefully annexed to the British Dominions’.
‘The Privy Council was the highest judicial body in the British empire and decided in this case [Cooper V Stuart 1889] that New South Wales; ‘consisted of a tract of territory practically unoccupied without settled inhabitants or settled laws at the time when it was peacefully annexed to the British dominions. Bruce Kercher, op.cit
On 3 April 1889 ‘U.K. Privy Council – Cooper V Stuart [1889] 14 AC ‘ Lords Watson, Fitzgerald, Hobhouse, Mac Naghton, Sir William Grove [ruled] [New South Wales] was peacefully annexed to the British Dominion’.
The decision favoured the defendant Stuart with costs against Cooper the plaintiff.
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‘After Cooper V Stuart (1889) the mainstream law of Australia developed without reference to the rights of Aborigines, despite the central economic fact that the entire nation was built on the land of others’. Bruce Kercher. op.cit.
In 1889 The Privy Council’s deliberations relied on accepting that, at the time of British invasion; ‘it [New South Wales was] ‘practically unoccupied without settled inhabitants …There was no land law or tenure existing at the time of its annexation to the Crown’. Kercher. op.cit
Canberra: In 1992 – Mabo – Australia’s High Court found both premises ‘legal fiction’ .
‘Put ten[10] to death, bring in the heads of the slain and two [2] prisoners to execute …my determination to repeat it whenever any future breach of conduct on their side should render it necessary’. General Orders Governor Phillip to Captain Watkin Tench . December 1790
It appears to be widely held, in law, Cooper V Stuart ‘had nothing to do with the rights of Aboriginal people’ . How can any Australian accept [New South Wales] was peacefully annexed to the British Dominions’ when their land was taken by the gun?
POSTSCRIPT
Botany Bay – 10 March: La Perouse, after six weeks rest and repairs, sailed for home. Sadly La Boussole and L’Astrolabe were lost with all hands. See: Asleep In the Deep – Merchant Men of the First Fleet
Each year La Perouse and his men are remembered at the Sydney suburb of La Perouse where a Catholic Mass marks their fleeting presence. See: A Band of Brothers and Mortal Enemies.
Tags: arthur phillip, colonisation, conflict, cooper vs stuart, exploration, first fleet, invasion, la perouse, Monte Video, new holland