262 PROCLAMATION 1788 King George the Third, the Royal Family, and Success to 26 Januarj'. the Ncw Colony — which were duly honored by the officers who stood round him ; the ceremony concluding with several Three toasts. voUeys from the marines. The day had been uncommonly fine, as Collins tells us; and it concluded with the safe arrival of the Sirius and the other ships from Botany Bay — ^the voyage thus terminating with the same good fortune that had attended it so conspicuously from the beginning. The formal proclamation of the colony did not take place until the 7th of February, by which time all the people on board the ships had been landed and placed under cover on shore. That was " the memorable day which established a regular form of government on the coast of New South tion"??the Wales."* On the slope of Point Maskelyne — afterwards Government kuown as Dawcs' Poiut — ^tho marines were drawn up under arms, the convicts stationed apart, and the Governor, sur- rounded by his officers, called upon Captain Collins, the Judge- Advocate, to read aloud the various documents which contained within them the essential powers of government. The first was the Commission appointing Phillip Captain- Reading the General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the territory «»ion™^ of New South Wales and its dependencies.f Then came the Act of Parliament, passed the year before, to enable his Majesty to establish a colony and a civil government, and for that purpose to erect a Court of Criminal Judi- cature for the trial of outrages and misbehaviours. After the Act, the Judge- Advocate proceeded to read out the Letters Patent constituting the Courts of Civil and Criminal Judicature, and also the Vice- Admiralty Court for the trial of piracies and other ofEences on the seas.J ^iHp^ When these documents had been disposed of, Phillip proceeded to address the assembly; his remarks being directed in the first instance to the soldiers, and in the ♦ Phillip's Voyage, p. 64 ; Collins, p. 7. t Post, p. 474. The original Ck>mmission is missing. t lb. , pp. 531, 537. The original Letters Patent, engrossed on parchment rolls, are in the Record Office, Sydney. Digitized by Google
